The Girls of Hillcrest Farm Part 21

The girls and Lucas all saw the two figures. They wavered for a moment and then one hurried behind the high stone wall between the yard and the old orchard. The other crossed the front yard boldly toward the highroad.

"They came from the direction of the east wing," whispered 'Phemie.

"Who do you suppose they are?" asked Lyddy, more placidly. "Somebody who tried to call on us?"

"That there feller," said Lucas, slowly, his voice shaking oddly, as he pointed with his whip after the man who just then gained the highroad, "that there feller is Lem Judson Spink--I know his long hair and broad-brimmed hat."

"What?" cried 'Phemie. "The man who lived here at Hillcrest when he was a boy?"

"So they say," admitted Lucas. "Dad knew him. They went to school together. He's a rich man now."

"But what could he possibly want up here?" queried Lyddy, as the ponies went on. "And who was the other man?"

"I--I dunno who he was," blurted out Lucas, still much disturbed in voice and appearance.

But after the girls had disembarked, and bidden Lucas good night, and the young farmer had driven away, 'Phemie said to her sister, as the latter was unlocking the door of the farmhouse:

"_I_ know who that other man was."

"What other man?"

"The one who ran behind the stone wall."

"Why, who was it, 'Phemie?" queried her sister, with revived interest.

"Cyrus Pritchett," stated 'Phemie, with conviction, and nothing her sister could say would shake her belief in that fact.

CHAPTER XIII

LYDDY DOESN'T WANT IT

"Who is this Mr. Spink?" asked Lydia Bray the following morning, as they prepared for church.

It was a beautiful spring morning. There had been a pattering shower at sunrise and the eaves were still dripping, while every blade of the freshly springing gra.s.s in the side yard--which was directly beneath the girls' window--sparkled as though diamond-decked over night.

The old trees in the orchard were pus.h.i.+ng both leaf and blossom--especially the plum and peach trees. In the distance other orchards were blowing, too, and that spattered the mountainside with patches of what looked to be pale pink mist.

The faint tinkling of the sheep-bells came across the hills to the ears of Lyddy and 'Phemie. The girls were continually going to the window or door to watch the vast panorama of the mountainside and valley, spread below them.

"Who _is_ this Mr. Spink?" repeated Lyddy.

Her sister explained what she knew of the man who--once a poorhouse boy--was now counted a rich man and the proprietor of Diamond Grits, the popular breakfast food.

"He lived here at Hillcrest as a boy, with grandfather," 'Phemie said.

"But what's _that_ got to do with his coming up here now--and at night?"

"And with Mr. Pritchett?" finished 'Phemie.

"Yes. I am going to ask Mr. Pritchett about it. They surely weren't after vinegar so late at night," Lyddy observed.

But 'Phemie did not prolong the discussion. In her secret thoughts the younger Bray girl believed that it was Cyrus Pritchett and Mr. Spink whom she had heard about the old house the night she and Lyddy had first slept at Hillcrest.

There was no use worrying Lyddy about it, she told herself.

A little later the roan ponies appeared with the Pritchett buckboard.

Instead of Mrs. Pritchett and her daughter, however, the good lady's companion on the front seat was Lucas, who drove.

"Oh, dear me!" cried Lyddy. "I hope we haven't turned Miss Pritchett out of her seat. Surely we three girls could have squeezed in here on the back seat."

"Nope," said Mrs. Pritchett. "That ain't it, at all. Sairy ain't goin' to church this mornin'."

"She's not ill?" asked Lyddy.

"I dunno. She ain't got no misery as I can find out; but she sartainly has a grouch! A bear with a sore head in fly time would be a smilin'

work of Grace 'side of Sairy Pritchett ever since she come home from the Temperance Club las' night."

"Oh!" came from 'Phemie.

"Why----She surely isn't angry because we went home early?" cried Lyddy.

"My sister, you see, got nervous----"

"I reckon 'taint that," Lucas hastened to say. "More likely she's sore on me."

"'Tain't nawthin' of the kind, an' you know it, Lucas," declared his mother. "Though ye might have driven 'round by the schoolhouse ag'in and brought her home."

"Wal, I thought she'd ride back with school teacher. She went with him,"

returned Lucas, on the defensive.

"She walked home," said Mrs. Pritchett, shortly. "I dunno why. She won't tell _me_."

"I hope she isn't ill," remarked the unconscious Lyddy.

But Lucas cast a knowing look over his shoulder at 'Phemie and the latter had hard work to keep her own countenance straight.

"Well," said Mrs. Pritchett, more briskly, "ye can't always sometimes tell what the matter is with these young gals. They gits crotchets in their heads."

She kept up the fiction that Sairy was a young and flighty miss; but even 'Phemie could no longer laugh at her for it. It was the mother's pitiful attempt to aid her daughter's chances for that greatly-to-be-desired condition--matrimony.

The roads were still muddy; nevertheless the drive over the ridge to Cornell Chapel was lovely. For some time the girls had been noting the procession of carriages and wagons winding over the mountain roads, all verging upon this main trail over the ridge which pa.s.sed so close to Hillcrest.

Lucas, driving the ponies at a good clip, joined the procession. Lyddy and 'Phemie recognized several of the young people they had met the night before at the Temperance Club--notably the young men.

Joe Badger flashed by in a red-wheeled buggy and beside him sat the buxom, red-faced girl who had voiced her distaste for the city-bred newcomers right at the start. Badger bowed with a flourish; but his companion's nose was in the air.