Phyllis was watching the way happily, but she only gave a smiling assent to Melissa's eagerness.
And then came the great hedges and the hidden palaces in the distance, and they all exclaimed over those. Finally they climbed the hill, and there on the left was the big stone mansion with its towers and turrets and the lovely pool at the foot of the lawn.
"That certainly is a wonderful house. Fancy living in a place like that! Fancy living where you could look at houses and lawns and drives like that! And, oh, that beautiful pool!"
Melissa was most enthusiastic. And then she discovered the other wide-spreading house off to her right.
"That's prettier yet," she said. "That's my idea of a house. If I ever get very, very rich, I'll build one like that. I like the tough stone better than the face stone. I like the casement windows and the arches. Look at those vines! How I'd like to see what it's like inside!"
Jenifer had turned his head to the backseat and raised his eyebrows, and receiving a mysterious signal from Phyllis, he said quite casually: "Well, why not? Suppose we do!" And he drove his car around the curve straight into the driveway.
"Oh, do you know them?" asked Melissa in awe.
"Yes, a little," he said with a covert grin. "Well enough to ask them to let us look through their house."
"I'm not very dressed up," said Melissa, beginning to straighten her hat and push back her hair. "My shoes are rather shabby."
"They won't mind," said Jenifer with assurance, and he swept up under the porte cochere and brought the car to a standstill.
"They aren't home!" announced Bob. "There isn't a curtain at any window."
"I see a light in that window," said Rosalie eagerly.
"Aw, that's only the sunset reflecting in the glass, silly!" said Bob.
"Let's find out," said Jenifer, getting out. "Phyllis, have you those keys?"
"Phyllis Challenger, you haven't been foolish enough to look at a palace like this, have you? You couldn't touch it unless you were a millionaire," said Melissa crossly.
"Are you going to get out, Miss Challenger?" asked Jenifer. "Or do we wait outside?"
Melissa, smiling, allowed him to help her out.
"You see, your sister got a chance to look at this house, and she thought we all would enjoy it. It certainly has nice lines, doesn't it? Look at those arches. They couldn't be better!"
He unlocked the door, and they all stepped inside and gasped their appreciation.
Bob looked around for a minute and then glimpsed something through a window.
"Gee! There's a garage, too! And a dog kennel! I'm going out ta look."
He came back pretty soon and announced in a loud tone that there was a car in the garage. "It's a big shiny one," he said. "Looks swell. It's up on jacks. Whaddaya s'pose that's for?"
"Are you sure we aren't intruding?" asked Melissa, looking around uncomfortably. "It seems rather impudent, looking around on people's possessions. Just look at that desk! Isn't it lovely? My, wouldn't it be fun to live in a house like this!"
Phyllis said not a word, just walked around enjoying herself. She let them go all through the house and exclaim over every delightful feature and comment on the views from the windows, especially the one through an arched window where the sun was setting behind a distant hill, and sit down before the fireplace enjoying an imaginary fire; and then finally, just as they reluctantly got up to go, and even Bob and Rosalie had simmered down in their enthusiasm a little, she turned about and said:
"Well, Challengers, friends, what do you think of it?"
"Think of it!" said Melissa. "Do you have to ask?"
"Do you think this would do for us to live in for a while?"
"Do!" laughed Melissa. "Well, rather!"
"Well, we can," she stated quietly.
"Can what?" asked Bob sharply.
"Live in it."
"You're crazy!"
"No, I'm not crazy," said Phyllis. "I mean it. I know the owner, and we can come here and live if we want to."
"Who is the owner, sister?" asked Rosalie, her eyes wide with wonder.
They were all very still, looking toward Phyllis, expecting some joke, except Jenifer, who stood in the background and watched Melissa's lovely face with the sunset glow shining on it, touching up the rings of gold hair that escaped about her forehead and cheeks from the trim little hat.
"Who is it, Phyllis?" coaxed Melissa. "Don't tease us. Who owns it?"
"Our mother!" said Phyllis quietly, in a voice that carried sudden conviction to the entire group. For even Jenifer hadn't known the whole secret.
"What?" said Melissa, jumping up and gazing around to see if it wasn't all a dream. "Our mother owns this? Phyllis, there's some terrible mistake. Somebody is playing a joke on you."
Phyllis laughed.
"I thought so myself at first, but it's no mistake. It's all true. This is the property the lawyer made her sign for just before she left. He gave her the keys then. But she doesn't know herself how wonderful it is. She thinks it's a little cottage somewhere."
Then into the midst of the excitement of the moment there sounded a quick knock on the open door, and a fresh young voice called:
"Is there any admittance? Are these the Challengers? Because if they are, I'm coming in. I want to meet them. Phyllis Challenger, aren't you going to introduce me?"
Then Phyllis with very red cheeks stepped forward and said, "Oh, good evening! Melissa, this is Graham Garrison. He lives across the road and he'll be our neighbor. And this is Mr. Jenifer our friend, Graham; and these are Rosalie and Bob, my sister and brother."
"Well, I'm certainly glad to meet you all. How soon are you moving in? Because I'm keen on having some neighbors right away. How about dropping in on me for a few minutes since the light is fading and the electric light isn't turned on here yet. I tried to get Phyllis to come over this morning, but she seemed to think she hadn't time."
Then Melissa gave Phyllis a look of quick inquiry and turned back to look the boy over more carefully.
When they had finally locked the door and all climbed into Jenifer's car, with Garrison in the front seat with Jenifer and Bob, and Melissa in the backseat, Melissa leaned over and whispered to Phyllis.
"Phyllis Challenger, where in the world did you pick up that good-looking cherub of a boy?"
"I didn't pick him up; he picked me," said Phyllis cheerily. "He picked me up and drove me up the hill this morning when I thought I'd lost my way."
"Does Mother know him?" asked Melissa.
"No, but she will," said Phyllis coolly. "Isn't his house gorgeous? I'm crazy to see inside of it. It must be lovely. But of course I wouldn't go over this morning alone."
"But what will his family think of us all dropping down upon them?"
"He hasn't any," said Phyllis. "His mother is dead, and there's only himself and his kid brother, and he's off at school most of the time. He has a lot of servants, I guess, from the way he talked."
They went into the house while the boy owner showed them about, and they got wonderfully chummy with him. They all voted him most interesting. It was growing late when they tore themselves away to take the blueprints to Jenifer's man.
"Well," said Melissa when they got home at last and began to prepare for sleep, "aren't things different! Who would have believed the night Mrs. Barkus made such a fuss about the rent that all this would happen inside of one short week? Life is strange, isn't it? Phyllis, I wonder if God meant for us to pray for it."
"Ask Ian," said Phyllis with a twinkle in her eyes. "I heard you calling him that tonight. If you have got that far, you ought to be able to ask him a lot of things."
"Well, he asked me to," said Melissa, blushing.
"It's all right," said Phyllis, smiling, "but about the other question, I think myself that God was waiting till we got done trying to do everything for ourselves, and being proud of it, and got to where we knew He was the only One who could give us anything. We'd been forgetting God, Melissa Chal
lenger. In fact, we never paid the least attention to whether He existed, and we had to be taught better."
"I guess that's so," said Melissa. "I know I got to the end of myself that night."
"Well now, Lissa, what shall we do about this house? Shall we clean it up and get ready a surprise for Mother and Father?" And she told her what she had written in her letter that afternoon.
"Oh, Phyllis. Wouldn't that be wonderful!" said Rosalie. "Could we really do that? And are we really truly going to live in that wonderful house?"
"I think we are," said Phyllis.
"Gee! Then we won't have ta go ta that old stick-in-the-mud school anymore, will we? Gee! I'll have rabbits and guinea pigs! Gee! Graham Garrison said we could swim in his pool as much as we liked!"
By the time they got to bed, the Challengers were too excited to go to sleep.
And then they had to get up and read the letter from their distant cousin before they could quiet down again. After they had been still for a long time, Melissa said sleepily:
"Say, Phyllis, I didn't get any job today, but it won't matter so much now, will it? I think I can get that library position in the fall. I heard the girl that was after it was going to be married. And now that Mother has money enough to keep up this house, it won't matter if I do have to wait a few weeks."
"No," said Phyllis joyfully, "it never mattered, because I guess God knew what He was going to do with us all the time."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mary Challenger had been more than three weeks with her son, and she was getting uneasy about her husband and the rest of her family. She felt she ought to be back in the city planning somehow for her husband's homecoming. It was far beyond the time that had first been set for him to leave the hospital. She was afraid the delay might be worse for him.
And yet when she suggested going home, her boy was like a spoiled child. He looked desolate and forlorn.
She had watched beside him during his fevered hours that first week of her coming enough to learn the whole story of the wreck. She heard his varied opinions of one Sylvia Saltaine, and her heart was wrung by her insight into temptations that had come to her oldest son in college. On one occasion she met this Sylvia when she visited Jack Hollister's room with a message from Stephen about some fraternity matter. She heard the details of the wrecked car and her son's full part in it from his own delirious lips, and she was both anguished that he had been mixed up in such things and rejoiced that he had not been more fully involved in the shame of it. It was good to know that her boy had not been drunk when the car went over the precipice.
She even had a long talk with the college president and the dean and found food for thought, for regret, and for some pride, too. But most of all in those lonely hours after the patient had gone to sleep, she had learned to pray. It was her only solace during those first anguished days of waiting to see what was coming.
Stephen was no longer delirious. He was very weak and could talk very little, but one day after discovering that he had let out a good many things while he had a fever, he had a heart-to-heart talk with his mother. They came closer than they had done since he was a little boy and went deep into each other's souls. Then was Mary Challenger glad that she had come and glad that she had stayed with her boy.
The children had written very little of what was going on at home. Since Phyllis's unenthusiastic letter about the house, her mother had given up hope that the legacy was going to give her much help for her difficulties, though she had told Phyllis to clean it up if she thought it was worthwhile.
The talk in their letters had been mostly of what they cooked for dinner, what happened in school, or what Father said the last time they visited him and how he was walking around his room quite like his old self. Once or twice they mentioned taking a ride with Mr. Jenifer and described the scenery. She wondered at their lack of news. They often filled a whole letter with the kindnesses of Mr. Brady.
But one day right out of the blue, the doctor walked into Stephen's room and asked him how he would like to go home the next week. He outlined how easy the journey might be made: an ambulance to the station, a berth in the train, one of the nurses to go with him till he was settled in his own home.
When Mary Challenger saw the look in her boy's face, she knew it must be managed in spite of all difficulties. After a long wait in the telephone booth, she managed to get Phyllis on the wire by the kindness of Mr. Brady.
"Phyllis," she said, realizing that she must not make a long, expensive conversation. "The doctor wants me to bring Stephen home. He thinks it will be better for him now. Can you find a room at some quiet hotel where there is a good elevator service for a few days while I can look around and find a proper house? I think we may be able to manage the expense. You know that lawyer told me there was some money in the bank for me. I'll have to go down to the bank and find out about it as soon as I get there, and then we must get right to work and find some kind of home."
Phyllis's voice lilted over the wire with joyful sound. "Lovely, Mother! When are you coming?"
"Well, the doctor said he might go day after tomorrow if all goes well. But we'll have to wait till you find a place for your brother that will be really comfortable. We'll have to bring a nurse for the journey, you know."
"All right, Mother! I think I know a good place. Wire us what train you will be on, and we'll be at the station with a car. Mr. Jenifer offered his for him when he was ready to come home. Shall I say day after tomorrow, then? Will you take the day train or the night? All right. We'll meet you day after tomorrow at the evening train. I think it's around six. You can let me know."
"But, Phyllis, you must be sure to find a comfortable place--"
"I know, Mother. I will, of course!"
It was as easy as that! After the mother had hung up the receiver, she felt she had only half said what she intended, and so she sat down and wrote a long, laborious letter, telling it all over again, and sent the letter by airmail. It seemed too simple, as if Phyllis had known this was going to happen and had the hotel all picked out for him. The mother couldn't understand it. They were altogether too casual at home. But then they were young, of course.
She found she was a trifle disappointed in the back of her mind about that inheritance house. Phyllis hadn't said a word about it. She had hoped so that it might turn out an abiding place at least for a time, but if Phyllis had thought it worth anything, she certainly would have mentioned it now when there was such a stress. Well, at least there was much to be thankful for, and perhaps there would be some money left over from the regular upkeep of the little house to help out. Melissa would get that library job in the fall perhaps. She seemed to be hopeful in her last letter. And Phyllis would be able to find a secretarial place by summer. Anyway, there was nothing she could do till she got home but pray, and prayer had brought her thus far. She must not forget the great deliverances of the past.
So she packed her boy's scanty, tattered wardrobe, wept a few tears into his trunk to think she had not been able to dress him better in his last college year, and prepared to take him home.
There was a great excitement among the Challengers, little and big, during the next two days.
Melissa and Phyllis had been working like beavers for the last three weeks. They had cleaned "Heritage House," as they laughingly called it, from top to toe with the help of Bob and Rosalie after school. They had burrowed into bureau drawers and trunks of which they had discovered the keys and found sheets and blankets and pillows and spreads. They had made up the beds with hand-embroidered linen pillowcases and handsomely initialed sheets, and everything was in apple-pie order. They had had more solid pleasure out of the work than they had ever had in their lives before.
Of course, they had to make daily trips to see their father, one or the other of them, and there were a few little things that they had to do where they were living; but for the most part they managed to spend a good deal of each morning at Lynwood working hard.
Graham
Garrison discovered their presence and fell into the habit of coming over to help. He really was a great help moving heavy pieces of furniture into place, hanging out heavy blankets to air, even helping to wash windows. It is safe to say that he had never in his whole life together done as much work as he managed sometimes to get into one morning now.
He hunted up the caretaker, too, and nagged him into helping. He took the car to the garage for a good overhauling. He had his cook make up delicious lunches to bring over to the girls as they worked. And then he insisted on driving them home day after day in his car. He said he had to go in town to inquire about courses at the summer school. He made up excuses to do this every day in spite of their protests, and sometimes when they started out in the morning, they would find his car standing before the door ready to take them, or lurking around the corner, sneaking up on them just as they were about to take the trolley car.
In the evening, they often went back to Lynwood with Jenifer, who managed to drop in three or four times a week and worked with them joyously as if it were his home he was preparing.
Once, Brady and his family drove out in the evening to look the house over and beam in every room with unselfish pride and pleasure at what had come to the Challengers.
"You better have that there refrigerator looked over and running pretty soon," he told them the first night he came up. " 'Cause the first night you're up here, I'm goin' ta send up an order an' fill it up so your mommy won't havta bother her head fer two ur three days."
So Phyllis came home from her mother's telephone call with shining eyes and a happy heart.
"Well, they're coming day after tomorrow," she announced gleefully to Melissa, who was washing out stockings. "Stephen is coming! The first thing is to talk to the hospital people and see if Father can come, too. I think we had better bring him over the night before and let him get used to things and rested, don't you? Then he'll be there to surprise them, sitting down by that open fire in that wonderful room with the books all around! Won't that be great?"