"Mebbe he thought you said Greenville; this train goes to Greenville, if that"ll do you! Folks ain"t used to the new station yet, and the ticket agents are all bran" new too,--guess you got hold of a tenderfoot!"
"But Greenville will _not_ "do" for me," exclaimed Gilbert. "I want to go to _Greentown_."
"Well, get off at Lowell, the first stop,--you"ll know when you come to it because this gentleman that wanted to go to Lawrence will get off there, and this young lady that was intendin" to go to North Conway.
There"ll be four of you; jest a nice party."
Gilbert choked with wrath as he saw the mirth of the other pa.s.sengers.
"What train shall I be able to take to Greentown," he managed to call after the conductor.
"Don"t know, sonny! Ask the ticket agent in the Lowell deepot; he"s an old hand and he"ll know!"
Gilbert"s pride was terribly wounded, but his spirits rose a little later when he found that he would only have to wait twenty minutes in the Lowell station before a slow train for Greentown would pick him up, and that he should still reach his destination before bedtime, and need never disclose his stupidity.
After all, this proved to be his only error, for everything moved smoothly from that moment, and he was as prudent and successful an amba.s.sador as Mother Carey could have chosen. He found the Colonel, whose name was not Foster, by the way, but Wheeler; and the Colonel would not allow him to go to the Mansion House, Beulah"s one small hotel, but insisted that he should be his guest. That evening he heard from the Colonel the history of the yellow house, and the next morning the Colonel drove him to the store of the man who had charge of it during the owner"s absence in Europe, after which Gilbert was conducted in due form to the premises for a critical examination.
The Yellow House, as Garden Fore-and-Aft seemed destined to be chiefly called, was indeed the only house of that color for ten miles square. It had belonged to the various branches of a certain family of Hamiltons for fifty years or more, but in course of time, when it fell into the hands of the Lemuel Hamiltons, it had no sort of relation to their mode of existence. One summer, a year or two before the Careys had seen it, the sons and daughters had come on from Boston and begged their father to let them put it in such order that they could take house parties of young people there for the week end. Mr. Hamilton indulgently allowed them a certain amount to be expended as they wished, and with the help of a local carpenter, they succeeded in doing several things to their own complete satisfaction, though it could not be said that they added to the value of the property. The house they regarded merely as a camping-out place, and after they had painted some bedroom floors, set up some cots, bought a kitchen stove and some pine tables and chairs, they regarded that part of the difficulty as solved; expending the rest of the money in turning the dilapidated barn into a place where they could hold high revels of various innocent sorts. The two freshman sons, two boarding-school daughters, and a married sister barely old enough to chaperon her own baby, brought parties of gay young friends with them several weeks in succession. These excursions were a great delight to the villagers, who thus enjoyed all the pleasures and excitements of a circus with none of its attendant expenses. They were of short duration, however, for Lemuel Hamilton was appointed consul to a foreign port and took his wife and daughters with him. The married sister died, and in course of time one of the sons went to China to learn tea-planting and the other established himself on a ranch in Texas. Thus the Lemuel Hamiltons were scattered far and wide, and as the Yellow House in Beulah had small value as real estate and had never played any part in their lives, it was almost forgotten as the busy years went by.
"Mr. Hamilton told me four years ago, when I went up to Boston to meet him, that if I could get any rent from respectable parties I might let the house, though he wouldn"t lay out a cent on repairs in order to get a tenant. But, land! there ain"t no call for houses in Beulah, nor hain"t been for twenty years," so Bill Harmon, the storekeeper, told Gilbert. "The house has got a tight roof and good underpinnin", and if your folks feel like payin" out a little money for paint "n" paper you can fix it up neat"s a pin. The Hamilton boys jest raised Cain out in the barn, so "t you can"t keep no critters there."
"We couldn"t have a horse or a cow anyway," said Gilbert.
"Well, it"s lucky you can"t. I could "a" rented the house twice over if there"d been any barn room; but them confounded young scalawags ripped out the horse and cow stalls, cleared away the pig pen, and laid a floor they could dance on. The barn chamber "s full o" their stuff, so "t no hay can go in; altogether there ain"t any nameable kind of a fool-trick them young varmints didn"t play on these premises. When a farmer"s lookin" for a home for his family and stock "t ain"t no use to show him a dance hall. The only dancin" a Maine farmer ever does is dancin" round to git his livin" out o" the earth;--that keeps his feet flyin", fast enough."
"Well," said Gilbert, "I think if you can put the rent cheap enough so that we could make the necessary repairs, I _think_ my mother would consider it."
"Would you want it for more "n this summer?" asked Mr. Harmon.
"Oh! yes, we want to live here!"
"_Want to live here_!" exclaimed the astonished Harmon. "Well, it"s been a long time sence we heard anybody say that, eh, Colonel?
"Well now, sonny" (Gilbert did wish that respect for budding manhood could be stretched a little further in this locality), "I tell you what, I ain"t goin" to stick no fancy price on these premises--"
"It wouldn"t be any use," said Gilbert boldly. "My father has died within a year; there are four of us beside my mother, and there"s a cousin, too, who is dependent on us. We have nothing but a small pension and the interest on five thousand dollars life insurance. Mother says we must go away from all our friends, live cheaply, and do our own work until Nancy, Kitty, and I grow old enough to earn something."
Colonel Wheeler and Mr. Harmon both liked Gilbert Carey at sight, and as he stood there uttering his boyish confidences with great friendliness and complete candor, both men would have been glad to meet him halfway.
"Well, Harmon, it seems to me we shall get some good neighbors if we can make terms with Mrs. Carey," said the Colonel. "If you"ll fix a reasonable figure I"ll undertake to write to Hamilton and interest him in the affair."
"All right. Now, Colonel, I"d like to make a proposition right on the spot, before you, and you can advise sonny, here. You see Lem has got his taxes to pay,--they"re small, of course, but they"re an expense,--and he"d ought to carry a little insurance on his buildings, tho" he ain"t had any up to now. On the other hand, if he can get a tenant that"ll put on a few shingles and clapboards now and then, or a coat o" paint "n" a roll o" wall paper, his premises won"t go to rack "n" ruin same"s they"re in danger o" doin" at the present time. Now, sonny, would your mother feel like keepin" up things a little mite if we should say sixty dollars a year rent, payable monthly or quarterly as is convenient?"
Gilbert"s head swam and his eyes beheld such myriads of stars that he felt it must be night instead of day. The rent of the Charlestown house was seven hundred dollars a year, and the last words of his mother had been to the effect that two hundred was the limit he must offer for the yellow house, as she did not see clearly at the moment how they could afford even that sum.
"What would be your advice, Colonel?" stammered the boy.
"I think sixty dollars is not exorbitant," the Colonel answered calmly (he had seen Beulah real estate fall a peg a year for twenty successive years), "though naturally you cannot pay that sum and make any extravagant repairs."
"Then I will take the house," Gilbert remarked largely. "My mother left the matter of rent to my judgment, and we will pay promptly in advance.
Shall I sign any papers?"
"Land o" Goshen! the marks your little fist would make on a paper wouldn"t cut much of a figure in a court o" law!" chuckled old Harmon.
"You jest let the Colonel fix up matters with your ma."
"Can I walk back, Colonel?" asked Gilbert, trying to preserve some dignity under the storekeeper"s attacks. "I"d like to take some measurements and make some sketches of the rooms for my mother."
"All right," the Colonel responded. "Your train doesn"t go till two o"clock. I"ll give you a bite of lunch and take you to the station."
If Mother Carey had watched Gilbert during the next half-hour she would have been gratified, for every moment of the time he grew more and more into the likeness of the head of a family. He looked at the cellar, at the shed, at the closets and cupboards all over the house, and at the fireplaces. He "paced off" all the rooms and set down their proportions in his note-book; he even decided as to who should occupy each room, and for what purposes they should be used, his judgment in every case being thought ridiculous by the feminine portion of his family when they looked at his plans. Then he locked the doors carefully with a fine sense of ownership and strolled away with many a backward look and thought at the yellow house.
At the station he sent a telegram to his mother. Nancy had secretly given him thirty-five cents when he left home. "I am h.o.a.rding for the Admiral"s Christmas present," she whispered, "but it"s no use, I cannot endure the suspense about the house a moment longer than is necessary.
Just telegraph us yes or no, and we shall get the news four hours before your train arrives. One can die several times in four hours, and I"m going to commit one last extravagance,--at the Admiral"s expense!"
At three o"clock on Sat.u.r.day afternoon a telegraph boy came through the gate and rang the front door bell.
"You go, Kitty, I haven"t the courage!" said Nancy, sitting down on the sofa heavily. A moment later the two girls and Peter (who for once didn"t count) gazed at their mother breathlessly as she opened the envelope. Her face lighted as she read aloud:--
"_Victory perches on my banners. Have accomplished all I went for_.
GILBERT."
"Hurrah!" cried both girls. "The yellow house is the House of Carey forevermore."
"Will Peter go too?" asked the youngest Carey eagerly, his nose quivering as it always did in excitement, when it became an animated question point.
"I should think he would," exclaimed Kitty, clasping him in her arms.
"What would the yellow house be without Peter?"
"I wish Gilbert wouldn"t talk about _his_ banners," said Nancy critically, as she looked at the telegram over her mother"s shoulder.
"They"re not his banners at all, they"re ours,--Carey banners; that"s what they are!"
Mother Carey had wished the same thing, but hoped that Nancy had not noticed the Gilbertian flaw in the telegram.
X
THE CAREYS" FLITTING
The Charlestown house was now put immediately into the hands of several agents, for Mrs. Carey"s lease had still four years to run and she was naturally anxious to escape from this financial responsibility as soon as possible. As a matter of fact only three days elapsed before she obtained a tenant, and the agent had easily secured an advance of a hundred dollars a year to the good, as Captain Carey had obtained a very favorable figure when he took the house.
It was the beginning of April, and letters from Colonel Wheeler had already asked instructions about having the vegetable garden ploughed.
It was finally decided that the girls should leave their spring term of school unfinished, and that the family should move to Beulah during Gilbert"s Easter vacation.
Mother Carey gave due reflection to the interrupted studies, but concluded that for two girls like Nancy and Kathleen the making of a new home would be more instructive and inspiring, and more fruitful in its results, than weeks of book learning.