CHAPTER IV
THE VOICE OF THE OPEN COUNTRY
"Aunt Agatha!" Diane rapped lightly at her aunt's bedroom door. "Areyou asleep?"
"No, no indeed!" puffed Aunt Agatha forlornly. "Certainly not. Whenin the world did you come back from the farm, child? I've worried so!And like you, too, to come back as unexpectedly as you went." Sheopened the door wider for her niece to enter. "But as for sleep,Diane, I hope I'm not as callous as that. I shan't sleep a winkto-night, I'm sure of it."
Aunt Agatha dabbed ineffectually at her round, aggrieved eyes.
"Carl's a terrible responsibility for me, Diane," she went on, "thoughto be sure there have been wild nights when I've put cotton in my earsand locked the door and if I'd only remembered to do that I wouldn'thave heard the glass crash--one of the Florentine set, too, I haven'tthe ghost of a doubt. I feel those things, Diane. Mamma, too, had agift of feeling things she didn't know for sure--mamma did!--and theservants talk--of course they do!--who wouldn't? I must say, though,Carl's always kind to me; I will say that for him but--"
The excellent lady whose mental convolutions permitted her to speculatewildly in words with the least possible investment of ideas, rambled byserpentine paths of complaint to a conversational _cul-de-sac_ andtrailed off in a tragic sniff.
Diane resolutely smothered her impatience.
"I--I only ran down overnight. Aunt Agatha," she said, "to--to tellyou something--"
"You can't mean it!" puffed Aunt Agatha helplessly. "What in the worldare you going back to the farm for? Dear me, Diane, you're growingnotional--and farms are very damp in spring."
Diane walked away to the window and stood staring thoughtfully out atthe metropolitan glitter of lights beyond.
"Oh, Aunt Agatha!" she exclaimed restlessly, "you can't imagine howvery tired I grow of it all--of lights and cities and restaurants andeverything artificial! Surely these city days and nights of sillyfrivolity are only the froth of life! Have you ever longed to sleep inthe woods," she added abruptly, "with stars twinkling overhead and themoonlight showering softly through the trees?"
"I'm very sure I never have!" said Aunt Agatha with considerabledecision. "And it's not at all likely I ever shall. There are bugsand things," she added vaguely, "and snakes that wriggle about."
"I've always wanted to lie and dream by a camp fire," mused Diane,unconscious of a certain startled flutter of Aunt Agatha's dressinggown, "to hear the wind rising in the forest and the lap of the lakeagainst the shore." She wheeled abruptly, her eyes bright withexcitement. "And I'm going to try it."
"To sleep by a lake in springtime!" gasped Aunt Agatha in greatdistress. "Diane, I beg of you, _don't_ do it! I once knew a man whoslept out somewhere--such a nice man, too!--and something bit him--aheron, I think, or a herring. No! It couldn't have been either.Isn't it funny how I do forget! Strangest thing! But to sleep by alake in springtime, think of that!"
"Oh, no, no, no, Aunt Agatha!" laughed Diane. "I didn't mean quitethat. I'm merely going back to the Glade farm to-morrow to--" sheglanced with furtive uncertainty at her aunt and halted. "Aunt Agatha,I've been planning a gypsy cart! There! It's out at last and Idreaded the telling! When the summer comes, I'm going to travel aboutin my wonderful house on wheels and live in the free, wild, opencountry!"
"I can't believe it!" said Aunt Agatha, staring. "I can't--I won'tbelieve it!"
"Don't be a goose!" begged the girl happily. "All winter the voice ofthe open country has been calling--calling! There's quicksilver in myveins. See, Aunt Agatha, see the spring moon--the 'Planting Moon' anIndian girl I used to know in college called it! How gloriously itmust be shining over silent woods and lakes, flashing silver on thepines and the ripples by the shore. And the sea, the great, wide,beautiful, mysterious sea droning under a million stars!"
"Think of that!" breathed Aunt Agatha incredulously. "A million stars!I can't believe it. But dear me, Diane, there are seas and stars andmoons and things right here in New York."
With a swift flash of tenderness Diane slipped her arm about AuntAgatha's perturbed shoulders.
"You're not going to mind at all!" she wheedled gently. "I'm sure ofit. I'd have to go anyway. It's in my blood like the hint of summerin the air to-night."
Aunt Agatha merely stared. The Westfalls were congenital enigmas.
"A gypsy cart!" she gurgled presently, rising phoenix-like at last froma dumb-struck supineness. "A gypsy cart! Well! A wheelbarrowwouldn't have surprised me more, Diane, a wheelbarrow with a motor!"
"Don't you remember Mrs. Jarley's wagon?" reminded Diane. "It hadwindows and curtains--"
"Surely," broke in Aunt Agatha with strained dignity, "you're not goingin for waxworks like Mrs. Jarley!"
"Dear, no!" laughed Diane, with a sparkle of amusement in her eyes."There are so many wild flowers and birds and legends to study Ishouldn't have time!"
"Great heavens," murmured Aunt Agatha faintly, "my ears have gone queerlike mother's."
"And maybe I'll not be back for a year," offered Diane calmly. "I canwork south through the winter--"
Aunt Agatha fell tragically back in her chair and gasped.
"Didn't we take a whole year to motor over Europe?" demanded Dianeimpetuously. "And that was nothing like so fascinating as my gypsyhouse on wheels."
"If I could only have looked ahead!" breathed Aunt Agatha, shuddering."If only I could have foreseen what notions you and Carl were fated totake in your heads, I'd have refused your grandfather's legacy. Iwould indeed. Here I no more than get Carl safely home from huntingEsquimaux or whatever it was up there by the North Pole--walravens,wasn't it, Diane?--well, walrus then!--than you decide to become agypsy and sleep by a lake in springtime under a planting moon and stayoutdoors all winter, collecting birds, when I fancied you were safelylaunched in society until you were married."
"But Aunt Agatha," flashed the girl, "I'm not at all anxious to marry."
Aunt Agatha burst into a calamitous shower of tears.
"Aunt Agatha," said Diane kindly, "why not remember that you're nolonger burdened with the terrible responsibility of bringing Carl andme up? We're both mature, responsible beings."
Aunt Agatha dabbed defiantly at her eyes.
"Well," she said flatly, "I shan't worry, I just shan't. I'm pastthat. There was a time, but at my time of life I just can't afford it.You can do as you please. You can go shoot alligators if you want to,Diane, I shan't interpose another objection. But the trials that I'veendured in my life through the Westfalls, nobody knows. I was acheerful, happy person until I knew the Westfalls. And your father wasnotional too. I was a Gregg, Diane, until I married your uncle--hewasn't really your uncle, but a sort of cousin--and the Greggs, thankheavens! are mild and quiet and never wander about. Dear me, if aGregg should take to sleeping by a lake in spring-time under a plantingmoon, I would be surprised, I would indeed! There was only one in ourwhole family who ever galloped about to any extent--Uncle PeterGregg--and you really couldn't blame him. Bulls were perpetuallyrunning into him, and once he fell overboard and a whale chased him toshore. Isn't it funny? Strangest thing! But there, Diane, I wonderyour poor dear grandfather doesn't turn straight over in his grave--Ido indeed. Many and many a time your poor father tried him sorely--andCarl's mother too." Aunt Agatha sniffed meekly.
"Will you go alone?" she ventured, wiping her eyes.
"Bless your heart, Aunt Agatha, no!" laughed Diane radiantly. "I'mgoing to take old Johnny Jutes with me!"
Diane kissed her aunt lightly on the forehead.
"Well," said Aunt Agatha in melancholy resignation, "if you must turngypsy, my dear, and wander about the country, Johnny Jutes is the bestone to go along. He's old and faithful and used to your whims andsurely after thirty years of service, he won't break into tantrums."
Silver-sweet through the quiet house came the careless ripple of aflute, showering light and sensuous music. There was a dare-devil liltand sway to the flippant
strains and Aunt Agatha covered her face withher hands.
"Oh, Diane," she whispered, shuddering, "when he plays like that hedrinks and drinks and drinks until morning."
"Poor Aunt Agatha!" said the girl pityingly. "What troublesome folk weWestfalls are! And I no less than Carl."
"No, no, my dear!" murmured Aunt Agatha. "It's only when Carl playslike that--that I grow afraid."
Aunt Agatha went to bed to listen tremblingly while the dare-devildance of the flute tripped ghostlike through the corridors. Andfalling asleep with the laughing demon of wind and melody cascadingwildly through the mad scene from Lucia, she dreamt that Carl hadcaptured an Esquimau with his flute and weaving a suit of basket armorfor him, had dispatched him by aeroplane to lead Diane's gypsy cartinto the Everglades of Florida, the home-state of Norman Westfall untilhis ill-fated marriage.