CHAPTER III
TWINS--AND TROUBLE
Sometimes Mr. Howbridge called her "Martha," because she was socumbered with family cares. Sometimes he called her "Minerva," andacclaimed her to be wise. He so frequently joked with her in this waythat Ruth Kenway was not at all sure the lawyer was in earnest on thisoccasion.
"Twins?" she repeated, smiling up at him over the top of her muff."Twin _what_? Twin puppies, or kittens, or even fish? I suppose thereare twin fish?"
"You joke me, and I am serious," he said, while the younger onesshouted and sang amid the straw behind. "I really have had a pair oftwins given to me. I am their guardian, the administrator of theirestate, just as I was made administrator of the Stower estate andguardian of you girls. It is no joke, I assure you," and he finishedrather ruefully.
"Goodness me! you don't mean it?" cried Ruth.
"Yes, I do. I mean it very much. I do, indeed, think it rather mean.If all my friends who die and go to a better world leave me theirchildren to take care of, I shall be in a worse pickle than the LittleOld Woman Who Lived in the Shoe."
"Like old Mrs. Bobster at Pleasant Cove," laughed Ruth. "But even shedid not have twins. And if your new family is as troublesome as theCorner House crowd, what will you ever do?"
"That is what I am asking you, Minerva," he said seriously. "Whatwould you do if you had had twins left to you?"
"What are they, Mr. Howbridge? Boys or girls?"
"Both."
"Both? Oh! You mean one is a boy and one is a girl."
"Ralph and Rowena Birdsall."
"That is better than having two of either sex, I should say," Ruthobserved with more gravity. "They sort of--sort of balance eachother."
"I guess they are 'some kids,' as our friend Neale would say,"suddenly laughed Mr. Howbridge. "I knew Birdsall very well. I mightsay we were very close friends, both socially and in business. Poorfellow! The last two years of his life were very sad indeed."
"Has he left plenty for the twins?" asked Ruth.
"More than 'plenty,'" said Mr. Howbridge. "He was very, very wealthy.Ralph and Rowena will come into very large fortunes when they are ofage. The money is well invested."
"Then you need not worry about that," Ruth said sedately.
"No? The more money, the more worry for the administrator andguardian," Mr. Howbridge said succinctly. "I can assure you that istrue. But it is what to do for, and with, the twins themselves thatbothers me most just at first."
"How old are they?"
"About twelve. Nice age! All legs and arms and imagination."
"Dear me! Do you know them well?"
"Haven't seen them since they were two little red mites in theircradle."
"Then you merely imagine they are so very terrible."
"I heard enough about them from Frank, Frank Birdsall. That was theirfather's name. He used to be very fond of talking about them. Proud asLucifer, he was, of Ralph and Rowena. And his wife--"
"Oh! Of course, the mother is dead, too."
"That was what killed Frank, I verily believe," said Mr. Howbridgegravely. "She died two years ago at a camp he owned up near theCanadian border. Red Deer Lodge it is called. Mrs. Birdsall was flungfrom her horse.
"It crushed her husband. He brought the children away from there (theyhad spent much of their time up in the wilderness, for they loved it)and never went back again.
"That's another piece of work he's left me. Because he did not wantever to see the Lodge again, I have to go up there--now, inmid-winter--and attend to something that's been hanging fire too longalready. It is a nuisance."
"A camp in the woods in mid-winter must be an enjoyable place," Ruthsaid thoughtfully. "You can take your guns; and you can snowshoe; canskate; maybe--"
"And, as our good Mrs. Mac would say, eat fried snowballs and iciclesoup!" finished Mr. Howbridge. "Ugh! It's a fine place, Red DeerLodge, but I shall take only my man and we'll have to depend on someold guide or trapper to do for us. No, I look forward to no pleasanttime at Red Deer Lodge, I assure you."
This conversation was not carried on in sequence. The party in thebody of the sleigh frequently interrupted. Sammy managed to dance allover the sleigh, and half a dozen times he was on the point ofpitching out into the drifts.
"Let him!" snapped Agnes at last. "Let him be buried in the snow, andwe won't stop for him--not until we come back."
"The poor kid would be an icicle then," objected Neale O'Neil.
"And he'd miss the nice hot chocolate and buns Mr. Howbridge says weare to have at Crowder's Inn," put in Tess, the thoughtful.
Dot squeezed her Alice-doll close to her little bosom and made up hermind that that precious possession should not pop out by accident intoa drift and be left behind.
"I don't suppose I should have brought her," Dot confessed to Tess. "Ishould have given the sailor-boy baby an airing instead."
"Oh, yes! Nosmo King Kenway," murmured her sister.
Dot hurried on, ignoring the suggestive name of the sailor-boy babywho had been inadvertently christened after a sign on a barn door.
"You know," the smallest Corner House girl said, "Alice's complexionis so delicate. Of course, Neale had her all made over in the doll'shospital; but I am always afraid that the wind will crack it."
"I wouldn't worry so about her, Dot," advised Tess.
"You would if Alice were your baby," declared Dot. "And you know sheis delicate. She's never been the same since Lillie Treble buried herwith the dried apples in our back yard."
Meanwhile Neale O'Neil had caught a sentence or two flung back by thewind from the high front seat. He bobbed up between Mr. Howbridge andRuth.
"What's all this about red deer, and snowshoes, and eating iciclesoup?" he asked. "Sounds awfully interesting. Are you planning to gohunting, Mr. Howbridge?"
"I've got to go to a hunting lodge, clear up state, my boy," said thelawyer. "And I dread it just as much as you young folks would enjoyit."
"It would be fine, I think," murmured Ruth.
"Oh, bully!" shouted Agnes, suddenly standing up in the straw andclinging to Neale for support. "To a regular, sure-enough winter camp?Then Carrie and Lucy Poole, and Trix Severn can't crow over us anymore! They went, last year, to Letterbeg Camp, up beyond Hoosac."
"But, goodness, Agnes, wait till we are asked, do!" admonished Ruth."I never saw or heard of such precipitate young ones."
"Young one yourself!" grumbled Agnes.
"It's my fault," said the good-natured Neale. "Aggie misunderstoodwhat I said."
"No need to worry about it," said Mr. Howbridge cheerfully. "If youyoung folks really want to come with me--"
"Oh, Mr. Howbridge!" exclaimed Ruth, in a tone that showed she,herself, had been much taken with the idea.
"Why, I hate to go alone. I can send up some servants to open theLodge. Frank was always begging me to make use of it. After Mrs.Birdsall was killed he never would go near the place, as I said.Though I believe the twins, Ralph and Rowena, have been up there witha caretaker and a governess, or somebody to look out for them."
"Where are they now?" asked Ruth.
"The Birdsall place in Arlington was closed soon after Frank died,three months ago. His old butler and his wife live in a nice home nearby, and they have the children and their governess with them."
"With just servants?" murmured Ruth.
"They are very suitable people," declared Mr. Howbridge, as though hefelt the faint criticism in the girl's words. "I went myself and sawRodgers and Mrs. Rodgers. The governess and the twins were out for adrive, so I did not see them."
"The poor things!" sighed Ruth.
"My!" exclaimed Agnes, "those children are worse off than we Kenwayswere. They haven't got anybody like Ruth, Mr. Howbridge."
"That is true," agreed the lawyer. "But what am I to do? Separatethem? Send them to boarding school--the boy one way and the girlanother?"
"Gee! that would be tough, Mr. Howbridge," declared Neale O'Neil, withconsiderable feeling for t
he unfortunate twins.
"I don't see what I'm to do," complained the lawyer.
"They should have a real home," Ruth stated, with some severity."Sending them to boarding school is dodging the issue. So is leavingthem wholly in the care of servants."
"Who would take in two tearing and wearing children, twelve yearsold?" demanded Mr. Howbridge, on the defensive.
"Perhaps the fault does go back to the parents--to the father, atleast," admitted Ruth. "He should have made provision for his childrenbefore he died."
"I suppose you think the duty devolves upon me," said Mr. Howbridge,rather grumpily. "Should I take them into my house? Should I break upthe habits of years for two half-wild children?"
"Oh, I don't know that," Ruth told him brightly. "It's one of thosethings one must decide for oneself, isn't it?"
There was not much more said after that during the ride about thetwins, Ralph and Rowena Birdsall. But Red Deer Lodge!
The idea of going to a real camp in winter was taken up by everybodyin the party, for even Tom Jonah barked. In the depths of thewilderness, with wild woods, and wild animals, and perhaps wild men!(this in Sammy's mind) all about the Lodge! The freckled boyconsidered the idea even superior to his long cherished desire to runaway to be a pirate.
"I'll get me a bow-arrer and learn to shoot before we start," Sammydeclared, deluding himself, as he always did, with the idea that hewas to be a member of the party in any case.
"But you don't even know if your mother'll let you go, Sammy Pinkney!"cried Tess.
"She'll let me go if Aggie says I may," declared Sammy. "I can, can'tI, Aggie?" grabbing her by her plaid skirt and almost pulling her overbackwards.
"Stop! You can can that!" declared the next-to-the-oldest Corner Housegirl slangily. "What do you think I am--a bell rope, that you yank methat way?"
"I can go to that Red Deer Lodge, can't I?" insisted the youngster.
"You can start right now, for all I care," said Agnes, rathergrumpily, and giving Sammy no further attention.
But that was enough for Sammy Pinkney. He considered that he had aparticular invitation to accompany the party into the woods, and hewould tell his mother so when he reached home.
But Dot began to be worried.
"Just see here, Tess Kenway!" she exclaimed suddenly. "Do you supposemy Alice-doll--or any of the other dollies--can stand it?"
"Stand what?" her sister, quite excited, asked.
"Living in tents in winter?"
"In what tents?" asked the amazed Tess.
"Up there at Red Darling Camp--"
"Red _Deer_!"
"Well, I knew it was some nice word," Dot, undisturbed, said. "ButAlice is so delicate."
"Why, Dot Kenway! we won't have to live in tents," said Tess.
"We did in that other camp we went to," said the smaller girl. "Don'tyou 'member? And the tent 'most blowed over one night, and you and Iand Tom Jonah went sailing in a boat? And that clam man--"
"But, Dot!" cried Tess, "that was a summer camp. This is a winter one.And it's all made of logs, and there are doors and windows andfireplaces and--and everything!"
"Oh!" murmured Dot. "I wondered how they'd keep Jack Frost out. Andhe's stinging my ears right now, Tess Kenway."
The roadside inn was in sight now, and presently the big sleigh pulledup before it with the bells jangling and the horses steaming, as Dotremarked, "just as though they had boiling water in 'em and the smokewas leaking out."
The whole party ran into the grillroom and chased Jack Frost away withhot chocolate and cakes. There the idea of going to Red Deer Lodge forthe Christmas holidays was well thrashed out.
"Of course, I will send up my own servants and supplies. Beingadministrator of the estate, there will be no question of my using theLodge as I see fit," Mr. Howbridge said cheerfully. "And I shall bedelighted to have you young folks with me.
"I am really going to confer with an old timber cruiser about thestanding timber contracted for by the Neven Lumber Company beforeFrank Birdsall died. This timber cruiser--"
"It sounds like a sea-story!" interrupted Agnes, roguishly.
"What is a timber cruiser?" demanded Ruth, quite as puzzled as hersister.
"It is not a 'what' but a 'who,'" laughed Mr. Howbridge. "In his way,Ike M'Graw is quite a famous character up there. A timber cruiser is aman who knows timber so well that just by walking through a wood lotand looking he can number and mark down the trees that are sound andwill make good timber.
"Ike has written me through a friend (for the old man cannot use a penhimself, save to make his cross) that he has been over the entireBirdsall estate and that his figures and the figures of the Nevenspeople are too far apart. I fear that the lumber company is trying toput something over on me, and as administrator of the estate I mustlook out for the twins' interests."
"You are more careful of their money, Mr. Howbridge, than you are ofthe twins themselves, are you not?" Ruth suggested, in a low voice.
"Now, don't tell me that!" he cried. "I really cannot take thosechildren into my house."
"Well, you know," she told him, smiling, "you brought this on yourselfby asking my advice. And you intend to fill that Lodge up there withus 'young ones.'"
"But I shall have you to manage for me, Miss Ruth," declared thelawyer. "That is different."
"Perhaps we might take the twins along with us, and you'd get used tothem," Ruth said. "You say they like it up there in the wilderness."
"Frank said they were crazy about it."
"Well?"
"You don't know what you are letting yourselves in for. Ralph andRowena are young savages."
"Can't be much worse than Sammy, yonder," chuckled Neale, who, withAgnes, was much interested in this part of the planning.
"Oh, Ruthie!" exclaimed the second Kenway sister suddenly, claspingher hands. "There's Cecile and Luke!"
"Where--what--?"
"I mean we invited them to come to the Corner House for the holidays."
"Ah-ha!" exclaimed Mr. Howbridge promptly. "The Shepards? Of course! Ihad already included them--in my mind."
"Mr. Howbridge! It will be more than a party. It will be aconvention," gasped Ruth.
"It's such a lonely place that we'll need a big crowd to make it worthwhile going at all," the lawyer laughed. "Yes. Cecile and Luke areinvited. I will have them written to at once--in addition to your owninvitation to them, Miss Ruth."
"Dear me! you are just the best guardian, Mr. Howbridge," sighed Agnesecstatically.
"And I think," Ruth added, "that you ought to think seriously oftaking the Birdsall twins with us."
That was not decided at that time, however. And when the party gotback to the old Corner House, just across from the Parade Ground atthe head of Main Street, Mr. Howbridge was met with a piece of newsthat shocked him much more than had the thought of the twins makingtheir home with him in his quiet bachelor residence.
A clerk from the lawyer's office awaited Mr. Howbridge. There was atelegram from Rodgers, the Birdsalls' ex-butler. It read:
"Ralph and Rowena away since yesterday noon. Hospitals searched. Cannot have pond dragged. Two feet of ice. Wire instructions. --Rodgers."