The Girls of Hillcrest Farm Part 15

"Huh!" he said, in a gratified tone, sniffing in the doorway. "I told maw you two gals wouldn't go hungry. Ye air a sight too clever."

"Thank you, Lucas," said Lyddy, demurely. "Will you have a cup of tea!"

"No'm. I've had my breakfast. It's seven now and I'll go right t' work cutting wood for ye. That's what ye'll want most, I reckon. And I want to git ye a pile ready, for it won't be many days before we start plowin', an' then dad won't hear to me workin' away from home."

Lyddy went out of doors for a moment and spoke to him from the porch.

"Don't do too much tr.i.m.m.i.n.g in the orchard, Lucas, till I have a look at the trees. I have a book about the care of an old orchard, and perhaps I can make something out of this one."

"Plenty of other wood handy, Miss Lyddy," declared the lanky young fellow.

"And it'll be easier to split than apple and peach wood, too."

'Phemie, meanwhile, had said she would run in and find the candle she had dropped in her fright the night before; but in truth it was more for the purpose of seeing the east wing of the old house by daylight--and that skeleton.

"No need for Lyddy to come in here and have a conniption fit, too,"

thought the younger sister, "through coming unexpectedly upon that Thing in the case.

"And, my gracious! he might just as well have been the author of that mysterious speech I heard. I should think he _would_ be tired of staying shut up in that box," pursued the girl, giggling nervously, as she stood before the open case in which the horrid thing dangled.

Light enough came through the cracks in the closed shutters to reveal to her the rooms that the old doctor had so long occupied.

'Phemie closed the skeleton case and picked up her candle. Then she continued her investigation of the suite to the third room. Here were shelves and work-benches littered with a heterogeneous collection of bottles, tubes, retorts, filters, and other things of which 'Phemie did not even know the names or uses.

There was a door, too, that opened directly into the back yard. But this door was locked and double-bolted. She was sure that the person, or persons, whom she had heard talking the night before had not been in this room. When she withdrew from the east wing she locked the green-painted door as she had found it; but in addition, she removed the key and hid it where she was sure n.o.body but herself would be likely to find it.

Later she tackled Lucas.

"I don't suppose you--or any of your folks--were up here last night, Lucas?" she asked the young farmer, out of her sister's hearing.

"Me, Miss? I should say not!" replied the surprised Lucas.

"But I heard voices around the house."

"Do tell!" exclaimed he.

"Who would be likely to come here at night?"

"Why, I never heard the beat o' that," declared Lucas. "No, ma'am!"

"s.h.!.+ don't let my sister hear," whispered 'Phemie. "She heard nothing."

"Air you sure----" began Lucas, but at that the young girl snapped him up quick enough:

"I am confident I even heard some things they said. They were men. It sounded as though they spoke over there by the east wing--_or in the cellar_."

"Ye don't mean it!" exclaimed the wondering Lucas, leading the way slowly to the cellar-hatch just under the windows of the old doctor's workshop.

This hatch was fastened by a big bra.s.s padlock.

"Dad's got the key to that," said Lucas. "Jest like I told you, we have stored vinegar in it, some. Ain't many barrels left at this time o' year.

Dad sells off as he can during the winter."

"And, of course, your father didn't come up here last night?"

"Shucks! O' course not," replied the young farmer. "Ain't no vinegar buyer around in this neighborhood now--an' 'specially not at night. Dad ain't much for goin' out in the evenin', nohow. He does sit up an' read arter we're all gone to bed sometimes. But it couldn't be dad you heard up here--no, Miss."

So the puzzle remained a puzzle. However, the Bray girls had so much to do, and so much to think of that, after all, the mystery of the night occupied a very small part of 'Phemie's thought.

Lyddy had something--and a very important something, she thought--on her mind. It had risen naturally out of the talk the girls had had when they first went to bed the evening before. 'Phemie had wished for a houseful of company to make Hillcrest less lonely; the older sister had seized upon the idea as a practical suggestion.

Why not fill the big house--if they could? Why not enter the lists in the land-wide struggle for summer boarders?

Of course, if Aunt Jane would approve.

First of all, however, Lyddy wanted to see the house--the chambers upstairs especially; and she proposed to her sister, when their morning's work was done, that they make a tour of discovery.

"Lead on," 'Phemie replied, eagerly. "I hope we find a softer bed than that straw mattress--and one that won't tickle so! Aunt Jane said we could do just as we pleased with things here; didn't she?"

"Within reason," agreed Lyddy. "And that's all very well up to a certain point, I fancy. But I guess Aunt Jane doesn't expect us to make use of the whole house. We will probably find this west wing roomy enough for our needs, even when father comes."

They ventured first up the stairs leading to the rooms in this wing.

There were two nice ones here and a wide hall with windows overlooking the slope of the mountainside toward Bridleburg. They could see for miles the winding road up which they had climbed the day before.

"Yes, this wing will do very nicely for _us_," Lyddy said, thinking aloud.

"We can make that room downstairs where we're sleeping, our sitting-room when it comes warm weather; and that will give us all the rest of the house----"

"All but the old doctor's offices," suggested 'Phemie, doubtfully. "There are three of them."

"Well," returned Lyddy, "three and four are seven; and seven from twenty-two leaves fifteen. Some of the first-floor rooms we'll have to use as dining and sitting-rooms for the boarders----"

"My goodness me!" exclaimed her sister, again breaking in upon her ruminations. "You've got the house full of boarders already; have you?

What will Aunt Jane say?"

"That we'll find out. But there ought to be at least twelve rooms to let.

If there's as much furniture and stuff in all as there is in these----"

"But how'll we ever get the boarders? And how'd we cook for 'em over that open fire? It's ridiculous!" declared 'Phemie.

"_That_ is yet to be proved," returned her sister, unruffled.

They pursued their investigation through the second-floor rooms. There were eight of them in the main part of the house and two in the east wing over the old doctor's offices. The last two were only partially furnished and had been used in their grandfather's day more for "lumber rooms"

than aught else. It was evident that Dr. Phelps had demanded quiet and freedom in his own particular wing of Hillcrest.

But the eight rooms in the main part of the house on this second floor were all of good size, well lighted, and completely furnished. Some of them had probably not been slept in for fifty years, for when the girls'

mother, and even Aunt Jane, were young, Dr. Apollo Phelps's immediate family was not a large one.

"The furniture is all old-fas.h.i.+oned, it is true," Lyddy said, reflectively. "There isn't a metal bed in the whole house----"