*CHAPTER VIII*
*SPYING THE PROMISED LAND*
The following morning Miss Robbins said she thought she would drive downto the Mansion House with Elizabeth Ann herself, and they'd look itover.
"If you girls feel like coming down, you can take the short cut throughthe woods. Like enough you'll find some blood root out by now andsaxifrage too. Don't be like Jean, though. The other day she came upfrom the brook and said she'd found a calla lily, and it was just skunkcabbage."
So the girls took the short cut through the woods. They were justbeginning to show signs of spring. The trees were bare, but under thedry leaves they found the new life springing. It was all new andinteresting to them. Down at the Cove they had been in a beautiful partof Long Island but it was all restricted property. Here the woods andmeadows spread for miles on every hand. Every pasture bar seemed toinvite one to climb over it and explore the "Beyond," as Doris calledit. And where the woods ended in rocky pastures and wide spreadingfields, they came out to a spot where they overlooked the Mansion Houseand its grounds.
Cousin Roxana and Mrs. Robbins were there before them. The side doorstood hospitably open, and Ella Lou was hitched to the post just asthough she belonged there. It was a curiously interesting old place.First of all, a rock wall enclosed the grounds, with rock columns at thetwo entrance gates. These were wide, for the drive entered on one side,wound around the house, and came out on the other road, as the housestood at a corner.
The house itself looked like a glorified farmhouse. It wasn't at alllike a bungalow, Kit declared. In fact it was hard to place it in thehistory of architecture.
"I think perhaps it started out to be Mid-Victorian with that generalsquareness and the veranda," said Mrs. Robbins.
"That isn't Mid-Victorian, Mother darling," Jean interposed. "That'sthe Reaction Period in New England. First of all none of the Puritanwomen had any time to sit out on porches or verandas, so all the houseswere made plain faced. Then after the war they began to turn their mindsto lighter things, so they stuck a cupola up here, and tacked on alittle porch there, and gave the windows fancy eyebrows, and littlescalloped wooden lace ruffles along the edges of the eaves. Isn't thatso, Cousin Roxy?"
"Well, I declare, Jeanie," laughed Miss Robbins, "maybe you're right.I'd say, though, it was mostly a hankering after titivation. I don'tset much store by it myself, so long as I've got plenty of floweringbushes 'round a house, and climbing vines. That makes me think, you'vegot a sight of them here, flowering quince and almond, and 'pinies,' andall sorts of hardy annuals. There used to be a big border of them, Iremember, at the back of the house, and behind it was an old-fashionedrose garden."
"A rose garden!" Kit and Helen gasped.
"Wish I had my sun dial under my arm this minute," added Jean. "Comeon, girls."
Back they went to find it, and after hunting diligently through hazelbushes and upspringing weeds, they found where one terrace dipped into asunken space walled in once upon a time, though now the tumbled grayrocks had half fallen down, and some were sunken in the earth. But stillthey found some old rose canes, and several large bushes that lookedhopeful. There was a flagged walk with myrtle growing up between thestones, and a tumble-down arbor that Doris declared looked exactly likea shipwrecked pilot house off some boat.
"Let's call it our pilot house. We may need piloting before we getthrough," said Helen, sitting down on the broad front steps, her chin onher palms, listening to the music of falling water in the distance andthe wind overhead in the great, slumbrous pines. There were four ofthese, two on each side of the long terrace, with rock maples down nearthe rock wall, and several pear and cherry trees. Along the terracewere old-time flower beds, three on each one, outlined with clam shells.
"Miss Trowbridge used to have gladiolus set out in those beds, withpansies and sweet alyssum set 'round the edges, and outside again,old-hen-and-her-chickens. They looked real sightly."
"Who was Miss Trowbridge, Cousin Roxy?" asked Mrs. Robbins. She satbeside Jean, her hands clasped lightly in her lap, her hat lying besideher. There was a look of concent on her face that had been a strangerthere for many months. Doris dropped a spray of half blossomed cherrytwigs in her lap, and ran away again.
"She was own sister to the Trowbridge that owned the mills. She marriedsome man out in Canada, lived a while out there, then gave up and died.She never did have much backbone that I could see, but she lovedflowers. Did you notice a big glass bay window off the dining-room? Shecalled that her conservatory. I remember asking her if it was her'conversationary,' and how she did laugh at me! Well, everyone can't beexpected to know everything. It's all I can do to keep up with GileadCenter these days. Her name was Francelia and she married a McRae."
"But who had the place after she and her brother died?"
Cousin Roxana never believed in directness when it came to genealogies.She delighted in them, and would slip her glasses down to the middle ofher long nose, elevate her chin, and go after a family tree like agovernment arborist.
"Well, according to my way of thinking, it should belong to PineyHancock and her brother Honey. His name's Seth, but they call himHoney. Their mother was Luella Trowbridge, own sister to Francelia andTom who owned the mills, but she married Clint Hancock againsteverybody's word, and her father cut her off in his will, and never sawher from the day she was married. Tom did the same, but Francelia usedto go over and see her after Piney and Honey were born. They live downnear Nantic. You must have passed the house, little bit of a gray onewith rambler roses all over it, and a well sweep at one side. Theproperty went to Francelia after Tom died, and she had one boy. He'sout in Northwest Canada now and don't give a snap of his finger for thisplace, when there's Piney and Honey loving it to death and can't hardlywalk on the grass. Still, I suppose if they went to law, they'd getnothing out of it after all the lawyers had been satisfied."
Kit and Helen listened open-eyed.
"My goodness, Cousin Roxy," exclaimed Kit, "how on earth do you evermanage to keep track of all of them?"
"Keep track of them? Land, child, that ain't anything after you've beento school with them and lived neighbors all your life. You childrenwill like Piney and her brother, and maybe you can help put a littlehappiness into their lives, poor youngsters."
"Oh, Mumsie, I love this place already," whispered Jean contentedly,snuggling close to her mother's side.
"Do you, dear?" Mrs. Robbins smiled down into the eldest robin's face.For some reason she always waited for Jean's judgment and opinion.
"Yes, I do, because it isn't really a farm and still we can have agarden and sell the hay and get out wood and raise all we need forourselves. I don't think we can do much else the first year, can we,Cousin Roxy?"
"If you do all that you'll be getting along finely. I'm going to startyou off chicken raising with a lot of little ones from my incubator. Youcan buy all you want for ten cents apiece, and if you get about fifteenlast year pullets and a rooster, you've got your barnyard family allstarted."
"Oh, I want to be mother to the incubator chickens; may I, please?"begged Doris instantly. "I think one of the saddest things in life is tobe hatched without a mother."
"Sympathetic Dorrie," laughed Kit, catching her down on the grass androlling her. "She's going to adopt all the chickens and goodness onlyknows what else."
"I'm going to keep bees," Helen announced serenely, with a certainaloofness in her manner quite as if she had stated that her chosenoccupation was one befitting a damsel of high degree. "I've alwayswanted bees ever since I read Maeterlinck's 'Life of the Bee.' I want agarden close and bees that bring me home the honey from the cloverfields and meadows fair."
"Lovely," Jean exclaimed, hugging her knees, and rocking to and frocontentedly. "You always select such royal occupations, Helenita. Ishall be the middleman of the farm. I am going to find markets for allthat my princess sisters raise. I'll make the castle
pay expenses andthat's more than most castles do. I want a horse and some sort of awagon."
"Don't get anything foolish," admonished Cousin Roxana. "Either a goodlow buggy with a top for bad weather, and a good deep space at the backto tuck things away in, or else a covered democrat's nice too, and youcan put in an extra seat in them if you like. I guess a democrat's thebest thing for you after all."
"Until we get our roadster," supplemented Helen. "I know Mother'llnever get along way up here without some kind of a car, will you, Motherdear?"
Mrs. Robbins shook her head smilingly.
"I'm thinking more about a new steel range for the kitchen, Childie."
Roxana smiled too. Only a few weeks before, kitchen ranges had beenthings of small import with Betty Robbins. All that the Motherbird hadbeen able to say when questioned at that time was that they cooked withelectricity, and had a gas range, she believed, but Tekla was the onewho knew.
"You'll have to burn wood out here, Helen, unless you get a tamelightning rod and hitch it to an electric stove," Kit said.
"I don't care what we have to do," Jean interposed. "I want the place;don't you, Mother?"
"I think I shall love it," said Mrs. Robbins, lifting her face to theswaying pine boughs overhead. "I wish that I could stay here now andnot have to go away at all."
"Helen, put the kettle on, and we'll all have tea," chanted Kit. "Youknow, Cousin Roxy, we always make Helen fix our tea. It isn't that shedoes it so wonderfully better than the rest of us, but she thinks shedoes, and she makes the most enticing ceremonial of it. You want toburn incense and kowtow before her serene highness. Wait till you seeher do it!"
Helen rose and made a deep curtsey before Miss Robbins.
"We ask the pleasure of your ladyship's presence at tea two weeks fromtoday."
"Oh, I'll be here," Cousin Roxana answered. "But I guess we'll leave theladyship behind. I've got a Quaker great-grandmother tucked in behind mealong the line of ancestors, and there's a silver goblet up home thatBenjamin Franklin drank from once when he was a guest at yourgreat-great-great-grandfather Eliot's place on the old Providenceplantations. Nice, pleasant, unassuming sort of man too, I've alwaysheard tell he was. So I'm all democrat clear through."
"You're a darling," Doris exclaimed, hugging her from behind, both armswound tightly around her throat. "We'd never have come up here at allif it hadn't been for you."
"There, child, there. It says in the Book, you know, 'The Lord movethin a mysterious way, His wonders to perform,' and if I do say it asshouldn't, He seems to pick me out every once in a while and lets mehelp a little bit, blessed be His Name. Now, let's start for home."She rose from the porch step energetically. "Ella Lou's begun to movearound and that's to let me know it's after five. She can always tellthe time when the sun gets low."
"I feel sure Mother wants the place, don't you, Jean?" Kit asked, as thegirls went up through the woods towards home. "All the time we weregoing through the house I could see every bit of our furniture in theright places there. And there's so much room that Dad will hardly knowthe difference between this place and the old one at the Cove. He couldhave those two big rooms overlooking the valley on the second floor.You can see the great brown stone dam from there and the ruins of themill, and hear the falling water. I wish we had time to climb out overthe old dam to the mill."
"It's better than living right in a village," Jean answered, pushingaside the young birches that crowded the way. "I rather dreaded thatsomehow. Everybody'd want to know all about us right off, and why wecame up, and what ailed Dad, and everything else. I hope, though,Mother won't be lonely here. You know, girls, it is lonely for a womanlike her, where Cousin Roxy doesn't mind it."
"We'll have to pitch in and make up to her for everything she's lost,"said Doris solemnly.
"Dear old Dorrie." Kit put her arm around the littlest sister andsqueezed her affectionately. "You know, you are an awful make-believe.You are just like somebody, I've forgotten who it was, in the old Norsefairy lore, who lost his way over the hills and fell asleep in a magicring, and when he wakened the wee folks had anointed his eyes with fairyointment and everything that he looked at after that seemed beautiful tohim. Goodness knows we're going to need something like that out here.Of course it's all lovely now, but what will it be like in the winterwhen the north wind doth blow, and we shall have snow, and what willpoor robin do then, poor thing?"
"It's all a question of system," Jean declared, her hands deep in herwhite sweater pockets, and its collar turned high around her neck."We'll have to make a business of living, and learn how to do things wehate to do with the least effort."
"You're just a bluffer, Jean Robbins," exclaimed Helen, "just a bluffer.Anyone would think to hear you talk that you actually enjoyedprivations. Of course when we're with Mother and Dad, or even CousinRoxy, we have to put on a whole lot, but when we're alone I do think wemight at least be sincere with ourselves. We all know how we feel atheart about this sort of thing."
"What sort of thing?" asked Kit, on the offensive instantly. "What doyou mean?"
"Giving up everything we've been used to, and living out here in thewoods. I'm going to miss the girls most of all."
"Well, we don't like losing everything any better than you do, Helen,"Jean said soothingly. "Only--"
"Don't pat me," retorted Helen, shaking off her hand; "I know I'mselfish, and I'm beginning to feel sorry I said anything. Only it doeslook so bleak and forlorn here somehow."
"But if you have to do a thing, why, you just have to do it, that'sall," Kit declared. "It's better to make up your mind you're going tolike it. Look at that cow ahead of us. It must have strayed."
Through the birches ahead they could see some object obstructing thenarrow path, its back towards them. Large as a cow it was, and reddishbrown, but in place of short horns, this animal had spreading antlers,and Jean caught sight of its round puff of a tail.
"Oh, girls, it's a deer!"
At her voice the deer started and pushed into the thick underbrush untilit came to a stone wall. They watched it rise and clear it at a boundlike a thoroughbred horse, its knees bent under, its head held high.Then it was gone.
"Well, isn't that perfectly gorgeous!" gasped Kit, explosively. "I'venever seen one on its native heath before. Wish we could tame some,don't you, girls?"
"The Lady Kathleen doth already see a baronial estate with does andfawns at large," said Jean teasingly. "Wouldst have a few whitepeacocks standing on one foot upon thy entrance gates, oh, sister mine?"
"Well, I don't know but what they would look nice," Kit answeredplacidly. "I tell you what we do want to raise--turkeys. I've alwayswanted turkeys or geese. It's the simple turkey-tender that the fairygodmother turns into a beauteous princess."
Doris danced along the path ahead of them.
"I like this ever so much better than the Cove," she called. "It is allso wild and free."
"It will be fun mixing things up and making a success out of it whetherit wants to be or not--I mean the new home," Jean replied. "Only we'resure to get lonely sometimes for the people we liked down there. Youknow what I mean, don't you, Helen?"
"Indeed I do," Helen said fervently. "That's just what I told you.Think of our being buried up here in these woods for months and maybeyears."
"Still, it is worse for Mother. It's sort of an adventure for us girlsfrom which we'll escape some time, but it's the real thing for her,something that's going to last perhaps all through her life."
"No, it won't, Kit, because we'll grow up and rescue her if she doesn'tlike it."
"What about Dad?" asked Doris. "The doctors in the city say he'll neverget any better, and the old doctor up here says he'll begin to getbetter at once if he just stops thinking about himself and gets out ofdoors."
"I'd believe a doctor that talked to me like that even if I was halfafraid he might be wrong," Kit said soberly.
They paused at a spur of land that looked out over the lon
g valley.Little River flowed in a winding course marked by alders and willows.Now that there was no foliage to obscure the view, they could catch aglimpse here and there of a red roof or a white chimney. There was theSmith mill, then the old white Murray homestead with its weather vanestanding on a little hill like a big yardarm at large. Then came theirown old ruined mill, half tumbling down, with empty window casings, allovergrown with woodbine and poison ivy. Farther up the valley onecaught the hum of another mill, purring musically in a sort of crescendoscale until it broke off into a snappy zip! as the log broke.
Already Jean declared she knew the names and histories of all the peoplethere, and which way the roads went, and where the nearest towns lay.
"I feel exactly as if I stood now on the crest of the DelectableMountains," she said with a quiet; sigh. They had stood there some timein silence, looking at the widespread land of hills and valleys, uplandmeadows, warm and brown in the early spring sunshine, and sweeps ofwoodland, russet red with maple and ash, with here and there the darksombre richness of laurel or pine. "Who was it did that, Christian in'Pilgrim's Progress,' wasn't it?"
Helen and Doris knelt to look at some blossoming saxifrage at the edgeof a rock. Kit stood erect and tender-eyed.
"Oh, I don't know who it was," she said, quite gently for her, "but Iknow how he felt anyway. I always feel that way when I look out overvast distances, specially skylands; I wish I had wings or was all I wantto be. Don't you know what I mean, Jeanie? It makes you think of allthe things you hope to do some day."
"Like the spies that Gideon sent forth to look over the Promised Land,"Jean answered. "I always think of them at such times, traveling milesand miles up through the mountains until all at once they came to asudden opening and they looked out at it all lying at their feet likethis."
Kit smiled, her cheeks rosy from the upland climb, her hands deep in hersporting coat pockets. There was almost a challenging tilt to her chinas she faced that sweep of valley, barren and brown in the spring sunsethour.
"Well, it is _our_ Promised Land," she declared, "and I can tell itright now that it's got to blossom like the rose and pour out milk andhoney, because we've come to stay."