*CHAPTER XII*
*GILEAD'S GIRL NEIGHBORS*
The breakfast hour at Greenacres was supposed to be seven-thirty, butthe girls rose at about six and spent the hour before out in the garden.It was so fascinating, Helen said in her rather reserved way, to beout-of-doors in the early morning. Sometimes when the air was warmerthan the ground there would be a morning mist out of which rose clumpsof tree tops like little islands.
The following day at five-thirty exactly, Jean wakened drowsily to findKit standing by her bed, booted and spurred for the fray, as one mightsay.
"I want you to look at this clock and be a witness that I'm up on time,"she said briskly, holding up a bland, nickel-plated clock from thekitchen, a relic of the days of Tekla. "It's perfectly gorgeousoutside, Jean. I don't see how you girls can lie and sleep with allnature calling."
"Nature didn't call you before, did she, Kathleen Mavourneen? Go awayand let me sleep."
"Well, I get the turtles anyway. I've got them named already." Sheseated herself blithely on the foot of the bed, "Triptolemus andPrometheus. Like them? I'll call them Trip and Pro for short."
Jean sat up in bed and hurled her pillow at the laughing, fleeing form.From the end of the hall came a last challenge.
"I'm the early bird this morning anyway, Sleepyhead."
After breakfast though, when the little dew-spangled cobwebs were gonefrom the meadow grass, Jean had Honey harness Princess, and declared shewas going to drive over and get Piney to accompany her on a round ofcalls. Kit and Doris were busy out in the kitchen garden, and Helen washelping with the dusting and upstairs work. For some reason Jean wantedto go without them on this first reconnoitering expedition.
She drove down the hill towards Gilead Green, bowed with a little risingflush of color at the group in the front of the blacksmith shop, andstopped in front of the brown and white house where the Hancocks lived.It might have been the veritable witch's house in "Hansel and Gretel,"all constructed properly and comfortably out of sugar-loaf andgingercakes. The clapboards were a deep cream color and the trimmingswere all of brown, scalloped and perforated with trefoils and hearts.The green stalks of tiger lilies grew in thick clusters along its picketfence, and marigolds and china asters were coming up in the long beds.
"Hello, Jean," called Piney buoyantly, beating some oval braided rugsout on the back line. "Can you stop in?"
Jean leaned forward, the reins lying in her lap.
"I wanted to see if you couldn't go driving with me. Just so I can meetsome of the girls. We want to give a lawn social or some sort of asummer affair to get acquainted with our neighbors. It's too warm for ahouse warming, so we'll have a garden party."
"Why, the idea," Piney exclaimed, dropping her stick and pushing backher hair. "I think that's awfully nice. Wait till I ask Mother if Ican go."
Jean waited and presently Mrs. Hancock stepped out on the side porch anddown the steps to the carriage. She was rather like Honey and Piney,curly-haired and young appearing, with deep dimples and eyes that stillheld an abiding happiness in their blue depths. Her face was carewornand there were lines around her mouth that told of repressed pain, butit was the look in the eyes that held you. Luella Trowbridge may havegone through trouble, but she had married the man she loved and had beenhappy with him. She stretched out both hands to Jean.
"Honey's told us so much about you all up there that it seems as if Iknow every single one of you," she said, pleasantly. "You're Jean,aren't you? Of course Piney can go along if she wants to. Don't forgetthe new girl over at the old Parmelee place."
"It's funny, you're speaking of a lawn social," Piney remarked, as theydrove away. "We've been wanting to give one up at the church--"
"Which church?" asked Jean. "I can see so many little white spiresevery time I get to a hilltop. They look like fingers pointing up,don't they?"
"I suppose so." Piney was not much given to sentiment. "Anyway, herein our part of town, we've got two. Mother belongs to the Methodist butFather was a Congregationalist, so Honey and I divide up between them.Then over at Happy Valley, three miles south, there's anotherCongregational church, and we wanted to give a social--"
"Who wanted to?"
"We girls up here at our Congregational church. But our folks don't getalong very well with the folks at the Green church, and they say we'rejust dead up here, dead and buried because we never get anything up.And Mr. Collins, our minister, isn't on speaking terms with the Greenminister because something went wrong when old Mr. Bartlett died. Hewasn't a professor, you see--"
"What's that?" Jean's eyes were wide with interest. She was gettinglocal data at the rate of a mile a minute.
"Didn't belong to any of the churches at all, but he was awfully nice,so when he died a year ago, Mr. Collins said he'd bury him, though theGreen minister had said he wouldn't; so there you are. Then the otherminister is a lady--"
"Forevermore!" gasped Jean.
"She's the best of them all, just the same," Piney said soberly. "Onlythe two other ministers say it isn't the place for women in the pulpit,and how on earth we're ever going to have any social and invite themall, I don't see."
Jean's eyes suddenly shone with the joy of a new idea.
"I do," she said. "Let's visit all the three parsonages first off."
So they followed the road over to the Green and stopped at the whitecolonial house where Mr. Lampton lived. He was tall and gray-haired,and welcomed his callers with a twinkle in his eyes. It was notcustomary for two girls to pay a business call at the parsonage, butJean launched upon her subject at once. His advice and co-operationwere asked, that was all. Greenacre lawn would be given for the social,and the girls would look after the refreshments and the Japaneselanterns to decorate the grounds. Ten cents could be charged for icecream and cake, and the ladies could donate the cake. The proceedswould go to church needs.
"I didn't tell him how many churches, did I?" said Jean, when they droveaway with Mr. Lampton's earnest promise to help. He was invited toattend a committee meeting at Greenacres the following Saturday.
Miss Titheradge of the Happy Valley Church was delighted with the idea.Jean liked her at first sight. She was rather plump, with wide browneyes that never seemed to blink at all, and rosy cheeks.
"It's just what I've been telling the folks up here in these old granitehills. Get together, warm your hands at the fire of neighborly love andkindness. Have socials and all sorts of good times for your youngpeople and your old people. Bless everybody's hearts, they only needstirring up and turning over, and the old fire burns afresh. Yes, I'llhelp, children."
"We're sure of Mr. Collins," said Piney, as they drove away this time."I'll see him myself, and tell him about the committee meeting at yourhouse on Saturday. Now we can find some of the girls."
Jean never forgot that afternoon. They drove miles together, stoppingat the different houses and meeting the girls who were, to Jean atleast, the new material upon which she had to work.
At the old Ames place they found the two Swedish girls, tall, blonde,and blue-eyed, working out in the onion patch with their brothers.Ingeborg was the elder and Astrid the younger, sixteen and fourteenyears old. They had moved up from New York two years before, but hadboth gone to the public schools there and were ready for anything Jeansuggested.
"Ingeborg belonged to a basket ball team," Astrid said. "I can swim androw best."
The Chapelles lived in a little gray house close to the road onHuckleberry Hill, two miles below Cousin Roxana's. Etoile was shy-eyedand graceful, smiling but non-committal, and little Tony peered aroundher mother's skirts at the stranger in the carriage and coquettedmischievously. But they would come, ah, and gladly, Mrs. Chapellepromised.
"They like ver' much to come, you see?" she said eagerly, trying todetach Tony from her skirt. "Ton-ee, I have shame for you, _ma petite_.Why you no come out, make nize bow? Etoile, go bring some lilacs, makequi
ck!"
Etoile sped away to the tall rows of white and purple lilac bushes, andbroke off two large bunches to put in the back of the wagon. Then Mrs.Chapelle remembered that she must send over to her new neighbor a pat ofher butter. Such beautiful butter never anyone see, never. Jean mustdrive around through the lane and see the three Jersey cows browsingthere in the clover field, Henriette, Desiree, and Susette.
Last of all came the Icelandic farm, and here Jean found only the hiredmen, two grave-faced, light-haired transplanted vikings, who eyed hercuriously and silently. Hedda, the daughter, and her mother had drivenover to sell two young pigs at the Finnish place.
"Oh, dear me," laughed Jean, "let's go home. I feel as if I had beenriding like Peer Gynt, all over the world, just touching at countrieshere and there. Let's go right straight home, so I can talk to Motherand get a perspective on it all."
"Better ask the Mill girls over while you're about it," Piney suggested,so they made one last stop at the red saw-mill in the valley belowGreenacres. "They're Americans. My chum lives here, Sally Peckham.She's got five sisters and three brothers, but Sally's the whole familyherself."
The three brothers worked in the saw-mill after school hours, and Jeanonly caught a glimpse of them, but Sally sufficed. She came running outof the kitchen with a brown and white checked apron covering her up, andher red hair blowing six ways for Sunday, as Piney said laughinglyafterwards. She was short and freckled and not one bit pretty, unlessgood health and happiness and smiles made up for beauty. But theinstant you met Sally you recognized executive ability concentrated inhuman form.
"Billy, keep out of those lettuce beds," she called to a youngerbrother, strayed somehow from the mill. "How do you do, Miss Robbins--"
"Oh, call me Jean," Jean said quickly. "We're close neighbors. If wedidn't hear your whistle we'd never know what time it is."
"Well, we've been intending to get up the valley to see you, butMother's rather poorly, and all the girls are younger than me, so I helpher round the house. We've got twins in our family, did Piney tell you?Piney and I named them. We thought of everything under the sun, MarthaWashington and Betsey Ross, and Ruth and Naomi, and Mercy and Faith, andthen we got it all at once. We've had twins in our family before,Josephine and Imogene, that's Mother and Aunt Jo, but we didn't want torepeat. Somehow, it didn't show any--any imagination." She laughed andso did Jean. "So we called ours Elva and Sylvia. We say Elvy and Sylvyfor short. Anne and Charlotte are twelve and nine and the twins areonly five. They're too cute for anything. Wish you'd all come down andsee us Sunday afternoon."
"Sally'd ask the whole world to supper Sunday afternoon," Piney said asthey finally turned up the home road. "She's just a dear, and she hasto work all the time. She never has a single day to herself, and shedoesn't mind it a bit. She does manage to get away to sing in the choirSunday mornings, but that's all. And even if she isn't pretty, she'sgot a voice that makes gooseflesh come out all over you, and you shutyour eyes and just tingle when it rises and falls. I love her, she'sso--oh, so sort of big, you know. Isn't her hair red?"
"It's coppery and it's beautiful," Jean answered decidedly. "I thinkshe's dandy. Why can't the twins and Anne and Charlotte buckle in andhelp, so that Sally can get away once in a while?"
"Her mother says she can't do without her."
Jean pondered over that and finally tucked it away for the consultationhour with the Motherbird, as being too deep for her to settle.
It had been a very profitable afternoon, and after she had taken Pineyhome, she drove into the home yard, feeling as if she really had a lineon Gilead Center girls. Doris came running down to meet her as shejumped out, while Honey came to take care of Princess. Doris's eyeswere shining with excitement.
"Jean Robbins, what do you suppose has happened?"
"Something's sprouted," Jean guessed laughingly. Doris spent most of hertime watching to see if any of the seeds had started to sprout.
"No. It isn't that. Gypsy's got little chickens. She marched into thebarnyard with ten of them, as proud as anything. And nobody knows whereshe hatched them at all. Isn't she a darling to attend to it all byherself?"
Jean had to go immediately to see the new brood. Gypsy had cuddled themaround her in the barn on a pile of hay and steadfastly refused to beremoved. If ever a hen looked nonchalant she did, quite as if she wouldhave said, "I can do it just as well as any of these ridiculous nestersthat you're so proud of, and my chicks are twice as perfect as theirs."
"They're wonderful babies, Gypsy," Jean told her. "Be careful of themnow. Mothers have to behave themselves, you know. No more gallivantingoff to the wildwood."
"She probably will. I'm going to have Honey put them into a little cooptomorrow and her too, and let's change her name, Jeanie. Let's call hersomething tender and motherly. Call her Cordelia, after the RomanMother with the jewels, that Mother was telling us about."
So Cordelia she was, and Gypsy seemed to acclimate herself both tomaternity and to her new cognomen. It only proved, as Kit remarked,what children would do for a flighty and light-minded person, and shetrusted that some day Doris would have twins to occupy her mind.
Jean changed her dress and ran down into the kitchen to help get supperand tell her experiences of the day, which proved so entertaining andcomical that Mrs. Robbins finally came out and asked if they were everto have anything to eat.
"Dad's tray is all ready, Mother mine," Jean replied, sitting up on thetall wood box behind the stove, "I'm just waiting for the scones tobake, and Kit's fixing a beautiful jelly omelette. Mother, dear, younever saw anything so funny as these precious inhabitants, but they'reall gold, just the same, and I like them. And we're going to have alawn party here and invite all the warring factions. Isn't that nice?All the folks that aren't on speaking terms with each other we've askedto serve on the committee, so they'll have to come here for tea and chatsociably and neighborlike with each other."