AUNT JANE'S NIECES AT MILLVILLE
BY
EDITH VAN DYNE (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
1908
Continued....
CHAPTER IV.
ETHEL MAKES PREPARATION.
The Wegg homestead stood near the edge of a thin
forest of pines through
which Little Bill Creek wound noisily on its way to
the lake. At the
left was a slope on which grew a neglected orchard
of apple and pear
trees, their trunks rough and gnarled by the
struggle to outlive many
severe winters. There was a rude, rocky lane in
front, separated from
the yard by a fence of split pine rails, but the
ground surrounding the
house was rich enough to grow a profusion of June
grass.
The farm was of very little value. Back of the yard
was a fairly good
berry patch, but aside from that some two acres of
corn and a small
strip of timothy represented all that was fertile of
the sixty acres the
place contained.
But the house itself was the most imposing dwelling
for many miles
around. Just why that silent old sea-dog, Jonas
Wegg, had come into this
secluded wilderness to locate was a problem the
Millville people had
never yet solved. Certainly it was with no idea of
successfully farming
the land he had acquired, for half of it was stony
and half covered by
pine forest. But the house he constructed was the
wonder of the
country-side in its day. It was a big, two-story
building, the lower
half being "jest cobblestones," as the neighbors
sneeringly remarked,
while the upper half was "decent pine lumber." The
lower floor of this
main building consisted of a single room with a
great cobble-stone
fireplace in the center of the rear wall and narrow,
prison-like windows
at the front and sides. There was a small porch in
front, with a great
entrance door of carved dark wood of a foreign look,
which the Captain
had brought from some port in Massachusetts. A stair
in one corner of
the big living room led to the second story, where
four large
bed-chambers were arranged. These had once been
plastered and papered,
but the wall-paper had all faded into dull, neutral
tints and in one of
the rooms a big patch of plaster had fallen away
from the ceiling,
showing the bare lath. Only one of the upstairs
rooms had ever been
furnished, and it now contained a corded wooden
bedstead, a cheap pine
table and one broken-legged chair. Indeed, the main
building, which I
have briefly described, had not been in use for many
years. Sometimes,
when Captain Wegg was alive, he would build a log
fire in the great
fireplace on a winter's evening and sit before it in
silent mood until
far into the night. And once, when his young wife
had first occupied the
new house, the big room had acquired a fairly cosy
and comfortable
appearance. But it had always been sparsely
furnished, and most of the
decadent furniture that now littered it was useless
and unlovely.
The big wooden lean-to at the back, and the right
wing, were at this
time the only really habitable parts of the mansion.
The lean-to had an
entrance from the living room, but Old Hucks and
Nora his wife used the
back door entirely. It consisted of a large and
cheerful kitchen and two
rooms off it, one used as a store room and the other
as a sleeping
chamber for the aged couple.
The right wing was also constructed of cobble-stone,
and had formerly
been Captain Wegg's own chamber. After his death his
only child, Joe,
then a boy of sixteen, had taken possession of his
father's room; but
after a day or two he had suddenly quitted the house
where he was born
and plunged into the great outside world--to seek
his fortune, it was
said. Decidedly there was no future for the boy
here; in the cities
lurks opportunity.
When Ethel Thompson arrived in the early morning
that followed her
interview with McNutt she rode her pony through the
gap in the rail
fence, across the June grass, and around to the back
door. On a bench
beside the pump an old woman sat shelling peas. Her
form was thin but
erect and her hair snowy white. She moved with
alertness, and as the
girl dismounted and approached her she raised her
head and turned a
pleasant face with deep-set, sightless gray eyes
upon her visitor.
"Good morning, Ethel, dear," she said. "I knew the
pony's whinney.
You're up early today."
"Good morning, Nora," responded the schoolteacher,
advancing to kiss the
withered cheek. "Are you pretty well?"
"In body, dear. In mind both Tom 'n' me's pretty
bad. I s'pose we
couldn't 'a 'spected to stay here in peace forever;
but the blow's come
suddin-like, an' it hurts us."
"Where is Tom?"
"In the barn, lookin' over all the won'erful things
the rich nabob has
sent here. He says most things has strips o' wood
nailed over 'em; but
some hasn't; an' Tom looks 'em over keerful an' then
tells me 'bout 'em.
He's gone to take another look at a won'erful new
cook-stove, so's he
kin describe it to me right pertickler."
"Is he worried, Nora?"
"We's both worried, Ethel. Our time's come, an' no
mistake. Peggy McNutt
says as he had real orders to turn Hucks out if he
was a married man;
an' there's no disclaimin' he's married, is there?
Peggy's a kind man,
an' tol' us to keep stayin' 'til the nabobs arrove.
Then I guess we'll
git our walkin'-papers, mighty quick."
"I'm not sure of that," said the girl, thoughtfully.
"They must be
hard-hearted, indeed, to turn you out into the
world; and you are both
capable people, and would serve the city folks
faithfully and well."
"It's my eyes," replied the other, in a simple,
matter-of-fact tone.
"Hucks might wait on the nabobs all right, but they
won't tol'rate a
blind woman a minute, I'm sure. An' Hucks 'd ruther
be with me in the
poor-house than to let me go alone."
"Right y' air, Nora girl!" cried a merry voice, and
as the blind woman
looked up with a smile Ethel turned around to face
"Old Hucks."
A tall man, but much bent at the shoulders and
limping in one leg from
an old hurt aggravated by rheumatism. His form was
as gnarled as the
tree-trunks in the apple-orchard, and twisted almost
as fantastically.
But the head, uplifted from the stooped shoulders
and held a little to
one side, was remarkable enough to attract
attention. It had scanty
white locks and a fringe of white whiskers under the
chin, and these
framed a smiling face and features that were
extremely winning in
expression. No one could remember ever seeing Old
Hucks when he was not
smiling, and the expression was neither set nor
inane, but so cheery and
bright that you were tempted to smile with him,
without knowing why. For
dress he wore a much patched pair of woolen trousers
and a "hickory"
shirt of faded blue, with rough top boots and a
dilapidated straw hat
that looked as if it might have outlived several
generations.
As Ethel greeted the man she looked him over
carefully and sighed at the
result; for certainly, as far as personal
appearances went, he seemed as
unlikely a person to serve a "nabob" as could well
be imagined. But the
girl knew Thomas' good points, and remembering them,
took courage.
"If the worst comes," she said, brightly, "you are
both to come to us to
live. I've arranged all that with grandmother, you
know. But I'm not
much afraid of your being obliged to leave here.
From all accounts this
Mr. Merrick is a generous and free-hearted man, and
I've discovered that
strangers are not likely to be fearsome when you
come to know them. The
unknown always makes us childishly nervous, you see,
and then we forget
it's wrong to borrow trouble."
"True's gospil," said Old Hucks. "To know my Nora is
to love her.
Ev'body loves Nora. An' the good Lord He's took'n
care o' us so long, it
seems like a sort o' sacrelidge to feel that all
thet pretty furn'ture
in the barn spells on'y poor-house to us. Eh,
Ethel?"
McNutt arrived just then, with big Ned Long, Lon
Taft the carpenter, and
Widow Clark, that lady having agreed to "help with
the cleanin'." She
didn't usually "work out," but was impelled to this
task as much through
curiosity to see the new furniture as from desire to
secure the wages.
At once the crowd invaded the living room, and after
a glance around
Ethel ordered every bit of the furniture, with the
exception of two
antique but comfortable horse-hair sofas, carried
away to the barn and
stored in the loft. It did not take long to clear
the big room, and then
the Widow Clark swept out and began to scrub the
floor and woodwork,
while school-teacher took her men into the right
wing and made another
clearing of its traps.
This room interested the girl very much. In it Joe
was born and frail
Mrs. Wegg and her silent husband had both passed
away. It had two broad
French windows with sash doors opening on to a
little porch of its own
which was covered thickly with honeysuckle vines. A
cupboard was built
into a niche of the thick cobble-stone wall, but it
was locked and the
key was missing.
Upstairs the girl had the rubbish removed for the
first time in a
generation. The corded bedstead in the north room
was sent to join its
fellows in the barn loft, and Ned Long swept
everything clean in
readiness for the scrubbers.
Then, while Widow Clark and Nora cleaned
industriously--for the blind
woman insisted on helping and did almost as much
work as her
companion--the "men folks" proceeded to the barn and
under the
school-teacher's directions uncrated the new
furniture and opened the
bales of rugs and matting. Lon Taft was building new
steps to the front
porch, but Old Hucks and Ned and McNutt reverently
unpacked the "truck"
and set each piece carefully aside. How they
marveled at the enameled
beds and colored wicker furniture, the easy chairs
for lounging, the
dainty dressers and all the innumerable pretty
things discovered in
boxes, bales and barrels, you may well imagine. Even
Ethel was amazed
and delighted at the thoughtfulness of the dealer in
including
everything that might be useful or ornamental in a
summer home.
The next few days were indeed busy ones, for the
girl entered
enthusiastically upon her task to transform the old
house, and with the
material John Merrick had so amply provided she
succeeded admirably. The
little maid was country bred, but having seen
glimpses of city life and
possessing much native good taste, she arranged the
rooms so charmingly
that they would admit of scant improvement. The big
living room must
serve as a dining room as well as parlor; but so
spacious was it that
such an arrangement proved easy. No especial
furniture for the living
room had been provided, but by stealing a few chairs
and odd pieces from
the ample supply provided for the bedrooms, adding
the two quaint sofas
and the upright piano and spreading the rugs in an
artistic fashion,
Ethel managed to make the "parlor part" of the room
appear very cosy.
The dining corner had a round table and high-backed
chairs finished in
weathered oak, and when all was in order the effect
was not
inharmonious. Some inspiration had induced Mr.
Merrick to send down a
batch of eighteen framed pictures, procured at a
bargain but from a
reliable dealer. He thought they might "help out,"
and Ethel knew they
would, for the walls of the old house were quite
bare of ornament. She
made them go as far as possible, and Old Hucks, by
this time thoroughly
bewildered, hung them where she dictated and made
laughable attempts to
describe the subjects to blind Nora.
A telegram, telephoned over from the junction,
announced the proposed
arrival of the party on Thursday morning, and the
school-teacher was
sure that everything would be in readiness at that
time. The paint on
Lon's repairs would be dry, the grass in the front
yard was closely
cropped, and the little bed of flowers between the
corn-crib and the
wood-shed was blooming finely. The cow was in the
stable, the pigs in
the shed, and the Plymouth Rocks strutted over the
yard with an absurd
assumption of pride.
Wednesday Ethel took Old Hucks over to Millville and
bought for him from
Sam Cotting a new suit of dark gray "store clothes,"
together with
shirts, shoes and underwear. She made McNutt pay the
bill with John
Merrick's money, agreeing to explain the case to
"the nabob" herself,
and back up the agent in the unauthorized
expenditure. Nora had a new
gingham dress, too, which the girl had herself
provided, and on Thursday
morning Ethel was at the Wegg farm bright and early
to see the old
couple properly attired to receive their new master.
She also put a last
touch to the pretty furniture and placed vases of
her own roses and
sweet peas here and there, to render the place
homelike and to welcome
the expected arrivals.
"If they don't like it," said the girl, smiling,
"they're rather hard to
please."
"They're sure to like it, dear," answered old Nora,
touching with
sensitive fingers the flowers, the books and the
opened piano. "If they
don't, they're heretics an' sinners, an' there's no
good in 'em
whatever."
Then the little school-teacher bade good-bye to
Hucks and his wife, told
them to keep brave hearts, and rode her pony
cross-lots to
Thompson's Crossing.
AUNT JANE'S NIECES AT MILLVILLE
Continued....
 
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