CHAPTER X THE VENTURE

But Lyddy Bray never made up her mind in a hurry. Perhaps she was inclined to err on the side of caution.

Whereas ’Phemie eagerly accepted a new thing, was enthusiastic about it for a time, and then tired of it unless she got “her second wind,” as she herself laughingly admitted, Lyddy would talk over a project a long time before she really decided to act upon it.

It was so in this case. Once having seen the vista of possibilities that Lyddy’s plan revealed, the younger girl was eager to plunge into the summer-boarder project at once. But Lyddy was determined to know just what they had to work with, and just what they would need, before broaching the plan to Aunt Jane.

So she insisted upon giving a more than cursory examination to each of the eight chambers on this second floor. Some of the pieces of old furniture needed mending; but most of the mending could be done with a pot of glue and a little ingenuity. Furthermore, a can of prepared varnish and some linseed oil and alcohol would give most of the well-made and age-darkened furniture the gloss it needed.

There were old-style stone-china toilet sets in profusion, and plenty of mirrors, while there was closet room galore. The main lack, as ’Phemie had pointed out, was in the mattress line.

But when the girls climbed to the garret floor they found one finished room there–a very good sleeping-room indeed–and on the bedstead in this room were stacked, one on top of another, at least a dozen feather beds.

Each bed was wrapped in sheets of tarred paper–hermetically sealed from moths or other insect life.

“Oh, for goodness sake, Lyd!” cried ’Phemie, “let’s take one of these to sleep on. There are pillows, too; but we’ve got them. Say! we can put one of these beds on top of the straw tick and be in comfort at last.”

“All right. But the feather bed would be pretty warm for summer use,” sighed Lyddy, as she helped her sister lift down one of the beds–priceless treasures of the old-time housewife.

“Country folk–some of them–sleep on feathers the year ’round,” proclaimed ’Phemie. “Perhaps your summer boarders can be educated up to it–or down to it.”

“Well, we’ll try the ‘down’ and see how it works,” agreed Lyddy. “My! these feathers are pressed as flat as a pancake. The bed must go out into the sun and air and be tossed once in a while, so that the air will get through it, before there’ll be any ‘life’ in these feathers. Now, don’t try to do it all, ’Phemie. I’ll help you downstairs with it in a minute. I just want to look into the big garret while we’re up here. Dear me! isn’t it dusty?”

Such an attractive-looking assortment of chests, trunks, old presses, boxes, chests of drawers, decrepit furniture, and the like as was set about that garret! There was no end of old clothing hanging from the rafters, too–a forest of garments that would have delighted an old clo’ man; but—

“Oo! Oo! Ooo!” hooted ’Phemie. “Look at the spider webs. Why, I wouldn’t touch those things for the whole farm. I bet there are fat old spiders up there as big as silver dollars.”

“Well, we can keep away from that corner,” said Lyddy, with a shudder. “I don’t want old coats and hats. But I wonder what is in those drawers. We shall want bed linen if we go into the business of keeping boarders.”

She tried to open some of the nearest presses and bureaus, but all were locked. So, rather dusty and disheveled, they retired to the floor below, between them managing to carry the feather bed out upon the porch where the sun could shine upon it.

At noon Lyddy “buzzed” Lucas, as ’Phemie called it, about the way folk in the neighborhood cooked with an open fire, and especially about the use of the brick oven that was built into the side of the chimney.

“That air contraption,” confessed the young farmer, “ain’t much more real use than a fifth leg on a caow–for a fac’. But old folks used ’em. My grandmaw did.

“She useter shovel live coals inter the oven an’ build a reg’lar fire on the oven bottom. Arter it was het right up she’d sweep aout the brands and ashes with long-handled brushes, an’ then set the bread, an’ pies, an’ Injun puddin’ an’ the like–sometimes the beanpot, too–on the oven floor. Ye see, them bricks will hold heat a long time.

“But lemme tell ye,” continued Lucas, shaking his head, “it took the know how, I reckon, ter bake stuff right by sech means. My maw never could do it. She says either her bread would be all crust, or ’twas raw in the middle.

“But now,” pursued Lucas, “these ’ere what they call ‘Dutch ovens’ ain’t so bad. I kin remember before dad bought maw the stove, she used a Dutch oven–an’ she’s got it yet. I know she’d lend it to you gals.”

“That’s real nice of you, Lucas,” said ’Phemie, briskly. “But what is it?”

“Why, it’s a big sheet-iron pan with a tight cover. You set it right in the coals and shovel coals on top of it and all around it. Things bake purty good in a Dutch oven–ya-as’m! Beans never taste so good to my notion as they useter when maw baked ’em in the old Dutch oven. An’ dad says they was ’nough sight better when he was a boy an’ grandmaw baked ’em in an oven like that one there,” and Lucas nodded at the closet in the chimney that ’Phemie had opened to peer into.

“Ye see, it’s the slow, steady heat that don’t die down till mornin’–that’s what bakes beans nice,” declared this Yankee epicure.

Lucas had a “knack” with the axe, and he cut and piled enough wood to last the girls at least a fortnight. Lyddy felt as though she could not afford to hire him more than that one day at present; but he was going to town next day and he promised to bring back a pump leather and some few other necessities that the girls needed.

Before he went home Lucas got ’Phemie off to one side and managed to stammer:

“If you gals air scart–or the like o’ that–you jest say so an’ I’ll keep watch around here for a night or two, an’ see if I kin ketch the fellers you heard talkin’ last night.”

“Oh, Lucas! I wouldn’t trouble you for the world,” returned ’Phemie.

Lucas’s countenance was a wonderful lobster-like red, and he was so bashful that his eyes fairly watered.

“’Twouldn’t be no trouble, Miss ’Phemie,” he told her. “’Twould be a pleasure–it re’lly would.”

“But what would folks say?” gasped ’Phemie, her eyes dancing. “What would your sister and mother say?”

“They needn’t know a thing about it,” declared Lucas, eagerly. “I–I could slip out o’ my winder an’ down the shed ruff, an’ sneak up here with my shot-gun.”

“Why, Mr. Pritchett! I believe you are in the habit of doing such things. I am afraid you get out that way often, and the family knows nothing about it.”

“Naw, I don’t–only circus days, an’ w’en the Wild West show comes, an’–an’ Fourth of July mornin’s. But don’t you tell; will yer?”

“Cross my heart!” promised ’Phemie, giggling. “But suppose you should shoot somebody around here with that gun?”

“Sarve ’em aout jest right!” declared the young farmer, boldly. “B’sides, I’d only load it with rock-salt. ’Twould pepper ’em some.”

“Salt and pepper ’em, Lucas,” giggled the girl. “And season ’em right, I expect, for breaking our rest.”

“I’ll do it!” declared Lucas.

“Don’t you dare!” threatened ’Phemie.

“Why–why—”

Lucas was swamped in his own confusion again.

“Not unless I tell you you may,” said ’Phemie, smiling on him dazzlingly once more.

“Wa-al.”

“Wait and see if we are disturbed again,” spoke the girl, more kindly. “I really am obliged to you, Lucas; but I couldn’t hear of your watching under our windows these cold nights–and, of course, it wouldn’t be proper for us to let you stay in the house.”

“Wa-al,” agreed the disappointed youth. “But if ye need me, ye’ll let me know?”

“Sure pop!” she told him, and was only sorry when he was gone that she could not tell Lyddy all about it, and give her older sister “an imitation” of Lucas as a cavalier.

The girls wrote the letter to Aunt Jane that evening and the next morning they watched for the rural mail-carrier, who came along the highroad, past the end of their lane, before noon.

He brought a letter from Aunt Jane for Lyddy, and he was ready to stop and gossip with the girls who had so recently come to Hillcrest Farm.

“I’m glad to see some life about the old doctor’s house again,” declared the man. “I can remember Dr. Polly–everybody called him that–right well. He was a queer customer some ways–brusk, and sort of rough. But he was a good deal like a chestnut burr. His outside was his worst side. He didn’t have no soothing bedside mannerisms; but if a feller was real sick, it was a new lease of life to jest have the old doctor come inter the room!”

It made the girls happy and proud to have people speak this way of their grandfather.

“He warn’t a man who didn’t make enemies,” ruminated the mail-carrier. “He was too strong a man not to be well hated in certain quarters. He warn’t pussy-footed. What he meant he said out square and straight, an’ when he put his foot down he put it down emphatic. Yes, sir!

“But he had a sight more friends than enemies when he died. And lots o’ folks that thought they hated Dr. Polly could look back–when he was dead and gone–an’ see how he’d done ’em many a kind turn unbeknownst to ’em at the time.

“Why,” rambled on the mail-carrier, “I was talkin’ to Jud Spink in Birch’s store only las’ night. Jud ain’t been ’round here for some time before, an’ suthin’ started talk about the old doctor. Jud, of course, sailed inter him.”

“Why?” asked ’Phemie, trying to appear interested, while Lyddy swiftly read her letter.

“Oh, I reckon you two gals–bein’ only granddaughters of the old doctor–never heard much about Jud Spink–Lemuel Judson Spink he calls hisself now, an’ puts a ‘professor’ in front of his name, too.”

“Is he a professor?” asked ’Phemie.

“I dunno. He’s been a good many things. Injun doctor–actor–medicine show fakir–patent medicine pedlar; and now he owns ‘Diamond Grits’–the greatest food on airth, he claims, an’ I tell him it’s great all right, for man an’ beast!” and the mail-carrier went off into a spasm of laughter over his own joke.

“Diamond Grits is a breakfast food,” chuckled ’Phemie. “Do you s’pose horses would eat it, too?”

“Mine will,” said the mail-carrier. “Jud sent me a case of Grits and I fed most of it to this critter. Sassige an’ buckwheats satisfy me better of a mornin’, an’ I dunno as this hoss has re’lly been in as good shape since I give it the Grits.

“Wa-al, Jud’s as rich as cream naow; but the old doctor took him as a boy out o’ the poorhouse.”

“And yet you say he talks against grandfather?” asked ’Phemie, rather curious.

“Ain’t it just like folks?” pursued the man, shaking his head. “Yes, sir! Dr. Polly took Jud Spink inter his fam’bly and might have made suthin’ of him; but Jud ran away with a medicine show—”

“He’s made a rich man of himself, you say?” questioned ’Phemie.

“Ya-as,” admitted the mail-carrier. “But everybody respected the old doctor, an’ nobody respects Jud Spink–they respect his money.

“Las’ night Jud says the old doctor was as close as a clam with the lockjaw, an’ never let go of a dollar till the eagle screamed for marcy. But he done a sight more good than folks knowed about–till after he died. An’ d’ye know the most important clause in his will, Miss?”

“In grandfather’s will?”

“Ya-as. It was the instructions to his execketer to give a receipted bill to ev’ry patient of his that applied for the same, free gratis for nothin’! An’ lemme tell ye,” added the mail-carrier, preparing to drive on again, “there was some folks on both sides o’ this ridge that was down on the old doctor’s books for sums they could never hope to pay.”

As he started off ’Phemie called after him, brightly:

“I’m obliged to you for telling me what you have about grandfather.”

“Beginning to get interested in neighborhood gossip already; are you?” said her sister, when ’Phemie joined her, and they walked back up the lane.

“I believe I am getting interested in everything folks can tell us about grandfather. In his way, Lyddy, Dr. Apollo Phelps must have been a great man.”

“I–I always had an idea he was a little queer,” confessed Lyddy. “His name you know, and all—”

“But people really loved him. He helped them. He gave unostentatiously, and he must have been a very, very good doctor. I–I wonder what Aunt Jane meant by saying that grandfather used to say there were curative waters on the farm?”

“I haven’t the least idea,” replied Lyddy. “Sulphur spring, perhaps–nasty stuff to drink. But listen here to what Aunt Jane says about father.”

“He’s better?” cried ’Phemie.

The older girl’s tone was troubled. “I can’t make out that he is,” she said, slowly, and then she began to read Aunt Jane’s disjointed account of her visit the day before to the hospital:

“I never do like to go to such places, girls; they smell so of ether, and arniky, and collodion, and a whole lot of other unpleasant things. I wonder what makes drugs so nasty to smell of?

“But, anyhow, I seen your father. John Bray is a sick man. Maybe he don’t know it himself, but the doctors know it, and you girls ought to know it. I’m plain-spoken, and there isn’t any use in making you believe he is on the road to recovery when he’s going just the other way.

“This head-doctor here, says he has no chance at all in the city. Of course, for me, if I was sick with anything, from housemaid’s knee to spinal mengetus, going into the country would be my complete finish! But the doctors say it’s different with your father.

“And just as soon as John Bray can ride in a railroad car, I am going to see that he joins you at Hillcrest.”

“Bully!” cried ’Phemie, the optimistic. “Oh, Lyddy! he’s bound to get well up here.” For this chanced to be a very beautiful spring day and the girls were more than ever enamored of the situation.

“I am not so sure,” said Lyddy, slowly.

“Don’t be a grump!” commanded her sister. “He’s just got to get well up here.” But Lyddy wondered afterward if ’Phemie believed what she said herself!

They finished cleaning thoroughly the two rooms they were at present occupying and began on the chambers above. Dust and the hateful spiderwebs certainly had collected in the years the house had been unoccupied; but the Bray girls were not afraid of hard work. Indeed, they enjoyed it.

Toward evening Lucas and his sister appeared, and the former set to work to repair the old pump on the porch, while Sairy sat down to “visit” with the girls of Hillcrest Farm.

“It’s goin’ to be nice havin’ you here, I declare,” said Miss Pritchett, who had arranged two curls on either side of her forehead, which shook in a very kittenish manner when she laughed and bridled.

“I guess, as maw says, I’m too much with old folks. Fust I know they’ll be puttin’ me away in the Home for Indignant Old Maids over there to Adams–though why ‘indignant’ I can’t for the life of me guess, ’nless it’s because they’re indignant over the men’s passin’ of ’em by!” and Miss Pritchett giggled and shook her curls, to ’Phemie’s vast amusement.

Indeed, the younger Bray girl confessed to her sister, after the visitors had gone, that Sairy was more fun than Lucas.

“But I’m afraid she’s far on the way to the Home for Indigent Spinsters, and doesn’t know it,” chuckled ’Phemie. “What a freak she is!”

“That’s what you called Lucas–at first,” admonished Lyddy. “And they’re both real kind. Lucas wouldn’t take a cent for mending the pump, and Sairy came especially to invite us to the Temperance Club meeting, at the schoolhouse Saturday night, and to go to church in their carriage with her and her mother on Sunday.”

“Yes; I suppose they are kind,” admitted ’Phemie. “And they can’t help being funny.”

“Besides,” said the wise Lyddy, “if we do try to take boarders we’ll need Lucas’s help. We’ll have to hire him to go back and forth to town for us, and depend on him for the outside chores. Why! we’d be like two marooned sailors on a desert island, up here on Hillcrest, if it wasn’t for Lucas Pritchett!”

The girls spent a few anxious days waiting for Aunt Jane’s answer. And meantime they discussed the project of taking boarders from all its various angles.

“Of course, we can’t get boarders yet awhile,” sighed ’Phemie. “It’s much too early in the season.”

“Why is it? Aren’t we glad to be here at Hillcrest?” demanded Lyddy.

“But see what sort of a place we lived in,” said her sister.

“And lots of other people live hived up in the cities just as close, only in better houses. There isn’t much difference between apartment-houses and tenement-houses except the front entrance!”

“That may be epigrammatical,” chuckled ’Phemie, “but you couldn’t make many folks admit it.”

“Just the same, there are people who need just this climate we’ve got here at this time of year. It will do them as much good as it will father.”

“You’d make a regular sanitarium of Hillcrest,” cried ’Phemie.

“Well, why not?” retorted Lyddy. “I guess the neighbors wouldn’t object.”

’Phemie giggled. “Advertise to take folks back to old-fashioned times and old-fashioned cooking.”

“Why not?”

“Sleeping on feather beds; cooking in a brick oven like our great-great-grandmothers used to do! Open fireplaces. Great!”

“Plain, wholesome food. They won’t have to eat out of cans. No extras or luxuries. We could afford to take them cheap,” concluded Lyddy, earnestly. “And we’ll get a big garden planted and feed ’em on vegetables through the summer.”

“Oh, Lyddy, it sounds good,” sighed ’Phemie. “But do you suppose Aunt Jane will consent to it?”

They received Aunt Jane’s letter in reply to their own, on Saturday.

“You two girls go ahead and do what you please inside or outside Hillcrest,” she wrote, “only don’t disturb the old doctor’s stuff in the lower rooms of the east ell. As long as you don’t burn the house down I don’t see that you can do any harm. And if you really think you can find folks foolish enough to want to live up there on the ridge, six miles from a lemon, why go ahead and do it. But I tell you frankly, girls, I’d want to be paid for doing it, and paid high!”

Then the kind, if brusk, old lady went on to tell them where to find many things packed away that they would need if they did succeed in getting boarders, including stores of linen, and blankets, and the like, as well as some good china and old silver, buried in one of the great chests in the attic.

However, nothing Aunt Jane could write could quench the girls’ enthusiasm. Already Lyddy and ’Phemie had written an advertisement for the city papers, and five dollars of Lyddy’s fast shrinking capital was to be set aside for putting their desires before the newspaper-reading public.

They could feel then that their new venture was really launched.