Dorothy at Skyrie

CHAPTER I

EARLY VISITORS

"Hello! How-de-do?"

This salutation was so sudden and unexpected that Dorothy Chester jumped, and rising from the grass, where she had been searching for wild strawberries, beheld a row of pink sunbonnets behind the great stone wall.

Within the sunbonnets were three equally rosy faces, of varying sizes, each smiling broadly and each full of a friendly curiosity. It was from the biggest face that the voice had come, and Dorothy responded with a courteous "Good-morning!" then waited for further advances. These came promptly.

"I'm Alfaretta Babcock; this one's Baretta Babcock; and this other one, she's Claretta Babcock. The baby that's to home and can't walk yet – only just creep – she's Diaretta Babcock."

Dorothy laughed. The alphabetical names attached to these several "Babcocks" sounded very funny and she couldn't help her amusement, even if it were rude. However, no rudeness was suspected, and Alfaretta laughed in return, then walked a few steps to the bar-way, with her sisters following. These she hoisted upon the rails, and putting her hands upon the topmost one vaulted over it with an ease that astonished the city-bred Dorothy.

"Why! how well you did that! Like a regular gymnast!" she exclaimed, admiringly, and observing that this was a girl of about her own age though much larger and stronger in build, as the broad back now turned toward her showed.

Alfaretta did not reply, except to bid the children on the other side of the bars to "hop over," and when they were too timid to "hop" without aid she seized their hands and pulled them across, letting them drop on the long grass in a haphazard way that made Dorothy gasp and exclaim:

"Oh! you'll hurt them!"

Alfaretta faced about and keenly scrutinized Dorothy's face, demanding:

"You makin' fun, or not?"

"Fun? I don't see anything funny in such tumbles as those, and I surely wasn't making fun of the way you sprang over that fence. I wish I was as nimble."

"Pooh! That's nothing. I'm the best climber anywheres on the mounting. I can beat any boy 'round, even if I do wear petticoats. I'll learn you if you want me to," offered the visitor, generously.

"Thank you," said Dorothy, rather doubtfully. She did not yet know how necessary climbing might be, in her new country life, but her aspirations did not tend that way. Then thinking that this trio of Babcocks might have come upon an errand to Mrs. Chester, she inquired: "Did you want to see my mother?"

Alfaretta sat down on a convenient bowlder and her sisters did the same, while she remarked:

"You may as well set, yourself, for we come to see you more'n anybody else. Besides, you haven't got any mother. I know all about you."

"Indeed! How can that be, since I came to Skyrie only last night? And I came out to find some wild strawberries for my father's breakfast – we haven't had it yet."

If this was intended for a polite hint that it was too early in the day for visiting it fell pointless, for Alfaretta answered, without the slightest hesitation:

"We haven't, neither. We've come to spend the day. Ma she said she thought you might be lonesome and 'twasn't no more'n neighborly to start in to once. More'n that, she's glad to get us out the way, 'cause she's going down mounting to the 'other village' to 'Liza Jane's store – Claretta, stop suckin' your thumb! Dorothy Chester don't do that, and ma said she'd put some more that picra on it if you don't quit – to buy us some gingham for dresses. She heard 'Liza Jane had got in a lot real cheap and she's going to get a web 'fore it's all picked over."

Tired of standing, Dorothy had also dropped down upon the bowlder and now was regarding her uninvited guests with much of the same curiosity they were bestowing upon her, and Alfaretta obligingly shoved her smallest sister off the rock to make more room for their hostess.

"Don't do that! What makes you so rough with them? Besides, I must go. Mother will need me and I don't see any berries," said Dorothy, springing up. "Excuse me, please."

As she stooped to pick up the tin pail she had left on the grass, Alfaretta snatched it from her grasp and was off down the slope, calling back:

"Come on, then! I know where they're thicker 'n molasses in the winter time!"

With their unvarying imitation of their elder sister the two little girls likewise scampered away, and fearing she would lose mother Martha's new "bucket" Dorothy followed also. Across a little hollow in the field and up another rise Alfaretta led the way and there fulfilled her promise, for the northern hillside was red with the fruit. With little outcries of delight all of them went down upon their knees and began to gather it; the younger ones greedily stuffing their mouths till their faces were as red as the berries, but Alfaretta scrupulously dropping all but a few extra-sized ones into the rapidly filling pail. But she kept close to Dorothy and laughingly forced these finer ones between her protesting lips, demanding once:

"Ever go berryin' before, Dorothy C.?"

"Not – this kind of 'berrying,'" answered the other, with a keen recollection of the "berrying" she had done for the truck-farmer, Miranda Stott. "But how happened you to call me that 'Dorothy C.' as only my own people do? Who told you about me?"

"Why – everybody, I guess. Anyhow, I know all about you. See if I don't. You was a 'foundling' on the Chesterses' doorstep and they brought you up. You was kidnapped, and that there Barlow boy that Mis' Calvert's brought to Deerhurst helped you to get away. Mis' Calvert, she saw you in a lane, or somethin', and fetched you back to that Baltimore city where the both of you lived. Then she brought you here, too, 'cause Mr. Chester he's got something the matter with his legs and has had to come to the mounting and live on Skyrie farm. If he makes a livin' off it it'll be more'n anybody else ever done, ma says. The old man that owned it 'fore he gave it to Mis' Chester, he was crazy as a loon. Believed there was a gold mine, or somethin' like that, under the south medder – 'D you ever hear such a thing! Ma says all the gold'll ever be dug out o' Skyrie is them rocks he put into his stone walls. The whole farm was just clear rocks, ma says, and that's why the walls are four five feet thick, some of 'em more. There wasn't no other place to put 'em and besides he wanted it that way. The whole of Skyrie farm is bounded – Ever study jogaphy? Know how to bound the states? Course. I s'pose you've been to school more'n I have: but I can bound Skyrie for you all right. On the north by a stone wall, 'joining Judge Satterlee's place: on the south by a stone wall right against Cat Hollow – that's where I live, other side the mounting but real nigh, cut 'cross lots. On the east – I guess that's Mis' Calvert's woods; an' west – Oh! fiddlesticks – I don't know whose land that is, but it's kept off by more stone wall an' the thickest of the lot. Where the stone wall had to be left open for bar-ways, to drive through, he went to work and nailed up the bars. That's why I had to hop over, 'stead of letting 'em down. Say, our pail is filling real fast. Pity you hadn't a bigger one. After we've et breakfast we can come and get a lot for Mis' Chester to preserve. Ma she's done hers a'ready. Let's rest a minute."

Dorothy agreed. She was finding this new acquaintance most attractive, despite the forwardness of her manner, for there was the jolliest of smiles constantly breaking out on the round, freckled face, and the blue eyes expressed a deal of admiration for this city girl, so unlike herself in manner and appearance. Her tongue had proved fully as nimble as her fingers, and now while she rested she began afresh:

"Ma says I could talk the legs off an iron pot, if I tried, and I guess you're thinkin' so too. Never mind. Can't help it. Ain't it queer to be adopted? There was a power of money, real, good money, offered for you, wasn't there! My heart! Think of one girl bein' worth so much to anybody! It was all in the papers, but ma says likely we never would have noticed it, only Mis' Satterlee she showed it to ma, account of Mis' Chester moving up here an' going nigh crazy over losin' you. Ma she washes for the Satterlees, and they give us their old papers. Pa he loves to read. Ma says he'd rather set an' read all day than do a stroke to earn an honest livin'. Pa says if your folks had so many children as he has and some of 'em got away he wouldn't offer no reward for 'em, he wouldn't. But ma said: 'Now, pa, you hush! You'd cry your eyes out if Diaretta fell into the rain-barrel, or anything!' We ain't all ma's children. Four of 'em's named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They're hired out to work, 'cause they're older 'n what I am, and three is dead. Say, that's awful fine stuff your dress is made of. Do you wear that kind all the time? and shoes, too?"

"Yes, this is an everyday frock that dear Mrs. Calvert had made for me and gave me. She is my father's friend and is sorry for him, and does things for me, I reckon, just to help him. Of course, I wear shoes – when I have them!" laughed Dorothy, carefully refraining from looking at Alfaretta's own bare feet.

"What you laughing at?" demanded that observant young person, already joining in the mirth without knowing its cause.

"I was thinking how I was once allowed to buy a pair of shoes for myself and picked them out so small they nearly crippled me. And I have been barefooted, too, sometimes, when I was trying to escape from the truck-farm;" and once started upon the subject, Dorothy did not hesitate to complete the narrative of her adventures and, indeed, of all her short, simple life, as already related by me in another book called, "Dorothy Chester." – how she had been picked up on the doorstep by Mrs. Chester and brought up as that lady's own child – how she had been kidnapped and taken to the truck farm – how honest Jim Barlow had proved her best friend – and how at last the rich Mrs. Calvert had restored her to her foster parents at this picturesque if rather dilapidated home in the Highlands of the Hudson.

Alfaretta was likewise confidential, and with each passing moment and each fresh remembrance the liking between the two little maids strengthened. Finally, with a trifle of gloom, the country girl disclosed the fact:

"Pa he's the scolder to our house, but ma she's the licker. She says she ain't going to spoil her children by sparing rods when our 'upper lot' is full of 'em. The rods, I mean. She doesn't, neither. That's true as preachin'."

"Why, Alfaretta! Are you ever whipped? A big girl like you?"

"Huh! I may be bigger 'n you but I ain't much older. When's your birthday?"

"The second of April."

"My heart! If that don't beat the Dutch! Mine's the first. So we must be next door to twins. But lickin's! You just come to Cat Hollow any Saturday night, 'bout sundown, and you'll be in the nick of time to get a whack yourself. Ma says she's real impartial, 'cause she takes us in turn. One week she begins with me and the next time with Claretta. Diaretta ain't old enough yet to fall into line, and the boys were let off soon as they went to work and fetched in money. Ma says all of us need a lickin' once a week, anyhow, and she don't have time to bother with it only Saturday nights, after we all get washed. When do you get licked, yourself, Dorothy C.?"

"When? Never! Never in my whole life has anybody struck me. I – I wouldn't bear it – I couldn't!" cried Dorothy, indignantly. "But I mustn't stop here any longer. We've more than enough berries for breakfast and I'm so hungry. Besides, we're out of sight of the house and my father John will worry. He said last night, when he had me in his arms again after so long and so much happening, that he meant to keep me right beside him for the rest of his life. Of course, he didn't mean that exactly, and he was asleep when I came out. I waked up so early, with all the birds singing round, and oh! I think this wonderful old mountain is almost too beautiful to be true! Seems as if I'd come to fairyland, sure enough! I'm going now."

Dorothy said this with a faint hope that her visitors might depart without taxing Mrs. Chester to provide them a meal. She knew that no food was ever wasted in mother Martha's frugal household and but sufficient for three ever prepared, unless there was due warning of more to partake. Twice three would halve the rations and – at that moment, with appetite sharpened by early rising and the cool mountain air – the young hostess felt as if she could not endure the halving process.

However, her hope proved useless, for with a shout and bound, Baretta started for the cottage and Claretta kept her a close second, both crying loudly:

"I'm hungry, too! I'm hungry, too!"

Alfaretta was off with a rush, carrying the pail of berries and bursting in upon the astonished Mrs. Chester, with the announcement:

"We've come to spend the day! We're Mis' Babcock's children. See all the berries I've picked you? Is breakfast ready? 'Cause we are if it ain't!"

"Where – is – Dorothy C.?" questioned the housemistress, recognizing the extended pail as her own, wondering how it had come into this girl's hands, and failing to see any sign of her daughter, no matter how closely she peered outward.

"Why, sakes alive! Where is she?" echoed Alfaretta, with great surprise, also searching the landscape. "A minute ago she was tagging me, close, and now she isn't! My heart! What if she's gone and got herself kidnapped again!"

CHAPTER II

AN UNFORTUNATE AFFAIR

But nothing so dire had happened. Crossing the grassy stretch before the cottage Dorothy had caught sight of Jim Barlow's familiar figure, coming along the tree-bordered lane which led to Deerhurst, and had hurried to meet him. The shrubbery hid her from view of Mrs. Chester and the Babcock girls, and for a moment mother Martha's heart sank with the same dread she had known while her beloved child had been absent from her. "Kidnapped!" If Alfaretta had tried she couldn't have hit upon a more terrifying word to her hearer.

"O Jim! Did ever anybody see such a beautiful, beau-ti-ful spot as this? Let me hold Peter's chain – the darling dog! No, he won't get away from me! I shan't let him. You can lead Ponce – but why did you bring them? Did Mrs. Calvert know? How do you like Deerhurst? Are you going to be happy there? Shall you have a chance to study some? Must you work in the garden all the time? Oh! I want to know everything all at once and you are so slow to talk! But, Jim dear, just stop a minute and look – look! Isn't our new home lots prettier than the little brick house where we used to live – 77 Brown Street, Baltimore! Do stop and look – please do!"

Obedient Jim did pause, for this small maid could always compel him to her will, though he felt he was half-disobedient to his real mistress, Mrs. Cecil, in doing so. She had sent him with a basket of fruit from her own fine garden for the family at Skyrie and had bidden him take the Great Danes along to give them their morning exercise. They were wild with delight over the outing, and their vigorous gambols not only threatened to upset the basket hung on his arm but made him caution:

"Look out, Dorothy Chester! That there dog'll get away, an' then what'll happen?"

"Why – he'll get away, silly! You just said so yourself! But I won't let him – Quiet, Peter, bad dog! Down, sir, down! No, I'm not one bit afraid of you now, even if once you did nearly kill me and scared me out of my senses! O Jim! I'm so happy – so happy! Almost too happy to live. If my precious father were only well! That's the one thing isn't just perfect."

In her joy Dorothy gave her tall friend a rapturous pat on the shoulder, and though a swift flush rose to his sunburned cheek he shook off her caress as he would the touch of a troublesome insect. In his eyes this little maid whom he had rescued from her imprisonment on Mrs. Stott's truck-farm was the most wonderful of human beings, with her dainty, graceful ways and her lovely, mobile face. All the same – she was a girl, and for girls, as such, James Barlow had a boyish contempt.

But she did not resent his action, indeed scarcely noticed it as, whirling about to suit her movements to those of Peter, she still pointed to her new home:

"They say the man who built that house was queer, but seems to me he was very wise. All of stone, so, it looks almost like a big rock and part of the mountain itself. Such cute little, tiny-paned windows! Such a funny stairway going up to the second floor on the outside! There's a little one inside – so narrow and twisted, Jim, that even I can hardly walk straight up it but have to go sidewise. Then the back of the house is even with the ground. I mean that the biggest, best room of all, which is father John's, opens right on the garden. Two stories and a cellar in front, only a wee low story behind! Like a piece of the hillside it's on. Then the vines! Did you ever see such beauties? Oh! I love it, I love it, already, and I've only been here one night. What will it be when I've lived a long time there!"

"Huh! You'll get sick enough of it – 'fore long too. S'pose you hain't heard it's haunted– but I have, an' 'tis!"

"Jim Barlow! How ridiculous and – how delightful! What sort of a 'haunt' is it? Masculine, feminine, or neuter?" demanded Dorothy C., clapping her hands.

"Look out! Don't you let go that dog! You hold him tight, I tell you!" returned the lad, as her sudden action loosened the chain attached to Peter's collar. But she caught it again, deftly, and faced her friend, vexed that she saw in his face no answering enthusiasm to her own over the "loveliness" of Skyrie cottage.

"I haven't let go – yet, Master 'Fraid-cat! And you shall say my home is pretty!" she protested, imperatively. "Say it quick, too, 'cause I haven't had my breakfast and I have company waiting to eat it with me. Say it, Jim, say it!"

The boy laughed. He was very happy himself, that sunshiny morning, and felt more at ease than he had done for many days, because, at last, he was once more clad in blouse and overalls and knew that he had a busy day of congenial work before him. True, these working garments were new and of the best quality, provided by his new employer, but like in cut and comfort to those he had always worn. His feet alone bothered him, for a barefooted person could not be permitted about Deerhurst and his shoes were stiff and troublesome. Now there's nothing more trying to one's temper than feet which "hurt," and it was physical discomfort mostly that made the lad's tongue sharp and his mood unsympathetic; and thus goaded to an enthusiasm he did not feel he retorted:

"Well, it's purty enough, then, but that ruff must leak like a sieve."

"It's all mossy green on one side – "

"Where the shingles is rotten."

"And the dear little window-panes are like an old-fashioned picture!"

"A right smart of 'em is cracked or burst entirely."

"O Jim! How very unromantic you are! But you cannot say but that the vines are beautiful!"

"I've heard they're fust-class for givin' folks the rheumatiz."

Dorothy's enthusiasm ebbed. Rheumatism was the one malady that sometimes affected mother Martha's health. But she was not to be dashed by forebodings, and pointing to the garden declared:

"You cannot say a thing against our garden, anyway. Think of all that room for roses and posies and everything nice!"

"Garden? I call it a reg'lar weed-patch."

Dorothy heaved a sigh which seemed to come from her very shoes.

"You're – you're perfectly horrid, Jim Barlow. But I heard you say, once, while we were working on that truck-farm, that the thing you most longed for – after your education – was to own land. Look yonder, all that ground, inside those big stone walls, is ours, ours! Mr. Barlow. Behold and envy! Even on that untilled land flowers grow. See them?"

"Pshaw! Them's mullein. Ain't no surer sign o' poor soil than a passel o' mullein stalks. Stuns and mullein – Your pa's got a job ahead of him! Now I'm goin' on. I was told to give this basket to Mis' Chester and this note I've got in my jumper pocket to Mr. I'd ruther you'd take 'em, only I was told; and we've stood here foolin' so long, I've got to hurry like lightnin'. Take care that dog!"

With that Jim set his aching feet once more in the path of duty and Dorothy C. marched along beside him, her head held high in disdain but with a twinkle in her eye and mischief in her heart. Jim didn't like girls! Well, there was Alfaretta Babcock waiting for him, and he should be made to go through a formal introduction in punishment for his want of sympathy! She managed that he should precede her through the narrow doorway, into the very presence of the unknown, and chuckled in delight over his sudden, awkward pause, his flustered manner, and his attempt to back out of the little kitchen.

Mrs. Chester had gone up the stairs, to help her husband around the corner of the house and down the slope to the kitchen where breakfast was waiting and the three Misses Babcock with it. They sat in a row on the old lounge, their pink sunbonnets folded upon their blue-print laps, alert with the novelty of their situation and for "what next."

"Miss Alfaretta Babcock – Mr. James Barlow, of Baltimore. The Misses Baretta and Claretta Babcock – Mr. Barlow," announced Dorothy with perfect gravity, yet anticipating a funny, awkward scene. But she was unprepared for what really did happen, as Alfaretta promptly left the lounge, swept a most remarkable courtesy before the bashful lad, and seizing both his hands – dog-chain and all – in her own plump ones, exclaimed:

"Oh! Ain't I glad I come! You're the 'hero' that Mis' Judge Satterlee calls you! I meant to get to know you, soon's ever I could, but this beats the Dutch! I saw you in Mis' Calvert's carriage, last night all dressed up, and I was scared of you, but I ain't now. You might be just Matthew, or Mark, or Luke, though you're too tall for John. He's my littlest brother. Pshaw! To think any plain kind of a boy, same's them, could be a 'hero.' Ain't that queer? Did you come to breakfast, too? You fetched yours in a basket, didn't you? I would, too, but ma she hadn't nothing nice cooked up, and she was sort of scared offerin' city folks country victuals. My! Here comes Mis' Chester and her man. Won't they be tickled to see you!"

For a moment, after Alfaretta seized him, Jim looked full as flustered as Dorothy had desired: then all his awkwardness vanished before the hearty good will of the girl and he found himself shaking her hands with a warmth of cordiality equaling her own. She was as honest and simple-natured as himself, and instead of being amused by their meeting Dorothy soon felt something much nearer envy of Alfaretta's power to win liking and confidence.

Then she saw through the window father John limping down the path on his crutches, and hurried out to meet him; also to ask of the housemistress:

"Isn't there something I can do to help? How can we feed so many people? for, mother dear, Jim's come, too!"

"Oh! that's all right, deary. I cooked a lot of stuff, yesterday; made a feast for your homecoming. We'll have to use for breakfast what was meant for dinner. I was dismayed by those children coming, but I'm more than glad to have that boy here. We all owe him much, Dolly darling;" and mother Martha caught her restored child in a grateful embrace.

Poor Jim was far more ill at ease in the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Chester than he had been with Alfaretta: fidgeting under their thanks and praises, which they had vainly tried to express during their brief interview of the night before, and honestly astonished that anybody should make such ado over so trifling a matter.

"'Twan't nothin'. Not a mite. Anybody'd ha' felt sorry for a girl was coaxed away from her folks, that-a-way. Pshaw! Don't! No. I've had my breakfast a'ready. I couldn't. Mis' Calvert, the old lady, she sent me to fetch this basket o' garden sass to Mis' Chester: an' this letter was for you, sir. I was to give it to you an' nobody elst. I'm obleeged to ye, ma'am, but I couldn't. I couldn't, nohow. I'm – I'm chock-full!"

With this rather inelegant refusal, Jim turned his back on the neatly-spread table and fled through the doorway, dragging Ponce with him, overturning the too curious Claretta upon the floor, and making a vain effort to loosen Peter's chain from the arm of the chair where Dorothy had hastily fastened it.