CHAPTER V THE FIRST LINK
"What did old Hercules mean?" asked Sahwah in astonishment. "He said,'Dey's some tings folks don't want ter look at, and dey's tings deydassent look at!'"
"I can't imagine," said Nyoda, thoroughly mystified. "But there's onething sure, and that is, Uncle Jasper had some very potent reason forputting that shutter over that window, and I more than half believeHercules knows what it was. Hercules' explanations always become veryfluent when he is not telling the truth. If he really hadn't knownanything about it he probably would have said so simply, in about threewords, and without any hesitation. The elaborate details he went into toconvince me that he knew nothing about it sounds suspicious to me.
"But I don't believe the exclamation he made when he went out wasintended to deceive me. I think it was the involuntary utterance of whatwas in his thoughts. He seemed to be thinking aloud, and was quiteunconscious of our presence.
"But what a queer thing to say--'Dey's tings people _dassent_ look at!' Iwonder what it was that Uncle Jasper dared not look at? Was it somethinghe saw through this window? What is there to be seen out of this window,anyway?" She moved over in front of the window with the others crowdingafter her to see, too.
Uncle Jasper's study was at the back of the house and the windows lookedout upon the wide open meadow which stretched behind Carver Hill, betweenthe town and the woods. The front of Carver House looked out over thetown. Nearly half a mile to the east of Carver Hill another hill rosesharply from the town's edge. Upon its top stood another old-fashioneddwelling. This hill, crowned with its red brick mansion, was framed inthe arch of the gateway in the window like an artist's picture, withnothing between to obstruct the view. A beautiful picture it was,certainly, and one which could not possibly have any connection withHercules' muttered words.
"Who lives in that house?" asked Sahwah.
"I don't know," said Nyoda. "It's way up on the Main Street Hill. I'm notacquainted with the people in that end of town."
Sherry got out his binoculars and took a look through the window."Nothing but an old house on a hill," he reported, and handed thebinoculars to Sylvia, that she might take a look through them.
"Why," said Sylvia after peering intently through the glasses for aminute, "it's the house Aunt Aggie and I live in! What did that old househave to do with your Uncle Jasper?" she asked wondering. "It's been emptyfor many, many years."
"Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a romance in your UncleJasper's life?" exclaimed Hinpoha eagerly. "A blighted romance. He nevermarried, did he?"
"No, he never married," replied Nyoda.
"Then I'm sure it's a blighted romance!" said Hinpoha enthusiastically."I just know that some deep tragedy darkened the sun of his life and lefthim shrouded in gloom forever after!"
Even Nyoda smiled at Hinpoha's sentimental language, and the rest couldnot help laughing out loud.
"You sound like Lady Imogen, in 'The Lost Heiress,'" said Katherinederisively.
"Well, I don't care, you'll have to admit that there are some veryromantic possibilities, anyway," said Hinpoha stoutly.
"Yes, and some very prosaic ones, too," retorted Katherine. "Uncle Jasperprobably never married because he was a born bachelor, and preferred tolive alone."
"O Katherine, why are you always taking the joy out of life?" wailedHinpoha. "It's lots more fun to think romantic things about people thandull, stupid, everyday things."
"I think so too," said Sahwah, unexpectedly coming to the defense ofHinpoha. "I've been thinking a lot about old Mr. Carver, living alonehere all those years, and I've wondered if there wasn't some reason forit. Certainly something happened that made him put that shutter up,that's clear."
"Well, whatever motive the old man may have had for putting it up, we'llprobably never find it out," said Sherry, gathering up the screws andscrewdriver, "inasmuch as he's dead and it's no use asking Herculesanything; so we might as well stop puzzling over it. I'll hunt upsomething to fill in those screw holes with, Elizabeth, and polish themover." Sherry, in his matter-of-fact way, had already dismissed thematter from his mind as not worth bothering over.
Not so Nyoda and the Winnebagos. The merest hint of a possible mysteryconnected with the shutter set them on fire with curiosity and desire topenetrate into its depths.
"I wonder," said Nyoda musingly, eyeing the massive desk before her witha speculative glance, "if Uncle Jasper left any record of the repairs andimprovements which he made to the house while he was the owner. The itemof the shutter might be mentioned, with the reason for putting it up."
"It might," agreed the Winnebagos.
Nyoda looked around at the litter of odd pieces of furniture crowding theroom. "Sherry," she said briskly, "make up your mind this minute whetheryou want any of that old stuff, because I'm going to clear it out of hereand sell it."
"A lot of good it would do me to make up my mind to want any of it, ifyou've made up your mind to sell it," said Sherry in a comicallyplaintive tone.
"All right," responded Nyoda tranquilly, "I knew you didn't want any ofit. Boys, will you help Sherry carry out those two tables and that highdesk and the chiffonier--all the oak furniture. I'm not keeping anythingbut the mahogany. Set it out in the hall; I'll have the furniture mancome and get it to-morrow.
"There, now the room looks as it did when Uncle Jasper inhabited it," sheremarked when the extra pieces had been cleared out.
"It certainly was a pleasant room; I don't see how Uncle Jasper couldhave maintained such a gloomy disposition as he did, working all day in aroom like this. The very sight of that open field out there makes me wantto run and shout--and that window! Oh, who could look at it all day longand be crusty and sour?"
"But he had the shutter over the window," Sahwah reminded her.
"Yes, he did, the poor man!" said Nyoda in a tone of pity. She whiskedabout the room, straightening out rugs and wiping the dust from thefurniture, and soon announced that she was ready to begin investigations.She looked carefully through the desk first, through old account booksand files of papers and bills, but came upon nothing that touched uponrepairs made to the house. There was a long bookcase running the entirelength of one wall, and she tackled this next, while the Winnebagos sataround expectantly and Sylvia looked on from her chair, which she couldmove herself from place to place, to her infinite delight.
The boys had gone downstairs with Sherry to hear reminiscences from"across." All three boys worshipped Sherry like a god. To have been"across," to have seen actual fighting, to have been cited for bravery,and finally to have been shipwrecked, were experiences for which theyounger boys would have given their ears, and they treated Sherry with adeferential respect that actually embarrassed him at times.
Nyoda opened the bookcase and began taking out the books that crowded theshelves, opening them one by one and examining their contents. Most ofthem were works on history, some of them Uncle Jasper's own; great solidlooking volumes with fine print and dingy leather bindings. Ancienthistory, nearly all of them, and nowhere among them anything so modern asto concern Carver House.
"What a collection of dry-as-dust works to have for your most intimatereading matter!" exclaimed Nyoda, making a wry face at the books. "Not asingle book of verse, not a single romance or book of fiction, not theghost of a love story! There are plenty of them downstairs in thelibrary, that belonged to Uncle Jasper's father and mother, who must havehad quite a lively taste in reading, judging from the books down there;but Hercules told me that Uncle Jasper hadn't opened the cases down therefor twenty-five years. He never read anything but this ancient stuff uphere.
"He did write one book that had some life in it, though," she continuedmusingly. "That was a story of the life of Elizabeth Carver, his greatgrandmother, the one whose portrait hangs downstairs over the harp in thedrawing-room. He's got all her various love affairs in it, and it'sanything but dry. I sat up a whole night reading it the time I cameacross it in
the library down below. But from the date of its publishing,Uncle Jasper must have been a very young man when he wrote it, probablybefore the ancient history spider bit him."
"And before the shutter went up," added Sahwah.
"Well," said Nyoda, after she had peeped into nearly every book in thebookcase, "there doesn't seem to be anything here more modern than theFall of Rome, and that's still several seasons behind the affairs ofCarver House. Hello, what's this?" she suddenly exclaimed, holding up abook she had just picked up, one that had fallen down behind the otherson the shelf.
It was a fat, ledger-like volume heavily bound in calfskin. There was notitle printed on the back of it and Nyoda opened the cover. Two trulyterrifying figures greeted her eyes, drawn in India ink on the yellowedpage; figures of two pirates with fiercely bristling mustachios, andbrandishing scimitars half as large as themselves. Nyoda quite jumped,their attitude was so menacing. Under one was printed in red ink, "Tadthe Terror," and under the other "Jasper the Feend." Underneath the twofigures was printed in sprawling capitals:
DIERY OF JASPER M. CARVER, ESQWIRE
Nyoda gave a little shriek of laughter and held it up for the Winnebagosto see. "It must be Uncle Jasper's Diary when he was a boy," she said."His youthful idea of a man is a rather bloodthirsty one, according tothe portrait, I must say. I suppose 'Jasper the Feend' is supposed to beUncle Jasper. His mustachios bristle more fiercely than the other's, andhis scimitar is longer, so without doubt he was the artist."
Her eyes ran down the pages following, glancing at the lines of writing,which, having apparently been done in India ink, were still black,although the page on which they were written was yellow with age. As sheread, her eyes began to sparkle with interest and enjoyment.
"O girls," she exclaimed, "this is the best thing I've read in ages.Sherry and the boys must see it. I have to go and get lunch started now,but all of you come together after lunch and I'll read it out loud toyou."
"We'll all help," said Migwan, "and then we'll get through faster," andthe Winnebagos hurried downstairs in Nyoda's wake.