"What is he, a rhinocerous?" asked Migwan.
"Would that he were!" exclaimed Nyoda fervently. "A rhinocerous, a wild rhinocerous, with an ivory toothpick on his nose, would be a simple problem compared to Kaiser Bill. No, my dears, Kaiser Bill is a goat, a William goat, with the disposition of a crab, the soul of a monkey and the const.i.tution of a battle tank. We named him Kaiser Bill for reasons too numerous to mention. His diet is varied and fearful, and his motto, like Lord Nelson"s, is "a little more grape." He ate the whole grape vine, roots, tendrils and all, and then he ate the grape arbor for good measure. He has also consumed two hammocks, a tennis racket and the tar paper roof of the auto shed. He is fond of launching offensives, and his favorite method of warfare is a sudden attack from the rear. He is bomb proof, bullet proof and gas proof, and the only thing in the universe he is afraid of is an open umbrella. Not a few worthy members of this stately community have gained the impression that I am not quite right mentally, because I never go abroad in the street without an umbrella, never knowing at what moment that goat is going to escape from the confines of the stable yard, follow my trail, and come charging down upon me.
"One day I was sure he was out, and was walking along the street carrying my umbrella open, ready for instant emergency, when I met Mr.
Carrington, the frigid rector of St. John"s, the church to which all the leading families in Oakwood belong. It was a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky, nor was the sun so hot that protection from it was necessary.
Mr. Carrington asked, "Why the umbrella?" and I replied, "Oh, I always carry that, because I"m afraid I might meet the Kaiser!" Whereupon he looked at me severely and walked off abruptly, and it didn"t occur to me until later that he didn"t know who the Kaiser was, and how absolutely idiotic my answer must have sounded."
"Oh, Nyoda, how screamingly funny!" cried the Winnebagos, laughing until they cried.
"But why do you keep the goat if he is such a nuisance?" asked Gladys wonderingly.
"I can"t help myself," replied Nyoda with another tragic gesture. "I inherited him along with the house, and like the crown jewels, while I am to have full enjoyment of possession during lifetime, I can"t dispose of him."
"How queer!" said Sahwah. "I never heard of a will like that! What a strange man your uncle must have been!"
"Oh, Uncle Jasper had nothing whatever to do with it," replied Nyoda.
"He never even mentioned the Kaiser in his will."
"Then why can"t you get rid of him?" asked Sahwah, mystified.
"Because it would break old Hercules" heart," answered Nyoda. "Hercules was Uncle Jasper"s coachman all his life and grew old and white-haired in his service. When Uncle Jasper died he provided in his will that Hercules was to be retired on full wages and to continue living in the room over the stable that had been his home for fifty years. Hercules owned this goat, which he had brought up "by hand," and it was the delight of his heart. He begged me with tears in his eyes to let him keep it, so what could I do but give them both my blessing and submit meekly to the outrages of the beast? My poor rose vine!" she finished ruefully, looking at the torn twigs and branches which lay on the ground in the ruins of the trellis.
Then she suddenly threw back her head and laughed loud and long. "I was born under the sign of Capricornus, the Goat," she said, overcome with amus.e.m.e.nt. "It"s sheer fatality that I should be tied up to the Kaiser.
Who shall dispute the will of the G.o.ds?
"Come, Veronica, give us some music on the violin before we go to bed."
They returned to the long parlor where the mellow candle light shone softly on the harp and on an old-fashioned picture which hung above it.
It was an oil painting, a portrait of a young girl in a short-waisted white satin dress, clasping in her hands a red rose. The face was small and vivacious, and the bright brown eyes seemed to look straight into the eyes of the girls as they stood before the picture.
"Who is the girl in the picture, Nyoda?" asked Sahwah, whose eyes had been drawn irresistibly to the portrait ever since she had been in the room.
"That is the portrait of Elizabeth Carver," replied Nyoda. "She was the daughter of Alexander Carver, the man who built this house. I was named after her. That harp was hers, likewise the bed in which you are going to sleep, Sahwah. She was a young girl at the time of the Revolution, and her father and both her brothers fought in the war, as well as the man she was to marry. There is a story about her in Uncle Jasper"s history of the Carver family, how she saved her lover from the Indians.
This valley was the scene of many skirmishes between the Colonial troops and the Indians, who had taken sides with the British. He had come to pay her a visit when his horse was shot under him by an Iroquois scout, and, stunned by the fall, he lay motionless on the ground, when a whole band of Iroquois, returning from the ma.s.sacre of Wyoming, poured over the hilltop directly above them. Elizabeth took one look at the approaching Indians and then she lifted her Paul on to her own horse and galloped away to safety with the whole pack whooping at her heels. That is the tale of Elizabeth Carver, my namesake."
"Oh, Nyoda, how splendid!" cried Sahwah, with sparkling eyes. "Oh, dear, why can"t things like that happen now? Life in America is so tame and uneventful, compared to what it used to be in the early days." And she fell to musing discontentedly upon the vast advantage of frontier life over her own humdrum, modern existence.
Then Veronica began to play on her violin, and Sahwah"s discontented thoughts took wing, and she went floating out on a magic sea of music, and sat with closed eyes drinking in those wild, seraphic melodies that flowed from Veronica"s enchanted bow until it seemed as if it could be no mere violin making that music, it was the Angel Israel, playing on his own heart strings. As Sahwah sat and listened there suddenly came over her a great feeling of sadness, and unrest, a sense of the vastness and seriousness of life, and she felt desperately unhappy. She had never felt so before. All her life she had been happy-go-lucky, and scatterbrained, and life had stretched out before her as one vast picnic, without a single solemn note in it. And now, while she listened to Veronica"s playing she was suddenly plunged into the depths of world sorrow! She was so sad she didn"t know what to do, tears gathered in her eyes and stole down her cheeks; she didn"t know what she was sad about, but she was so sorrowful that her heart was breaking!
The sound of applause brought her to herself with a start. Veronica had stopped playing, and the girls were expressing their enraptured appreciation. Sahwah"s sadness left her and she applauded wildly, then sighed regretfully when Veronica put the violin back into its case and announced it was time to go to bed.
After they had gone upstairs and were preparing to retire, Hinpoha suddenly exclaimed in a dismayed tone: "My locket! It"s gone!"
"Are you sure you didn"t leave it at home?" asked Nyoda.
"I know I wore it," replied Hinpoha, "I remember having it on in the train. My hair caught in _it_ and I had to take it off to get it loose.
Then I put it on again, and I never thought of it since."
"Was it the one your mother gave you, with her picture in?" asked Migwan, sympathetically.
"No," replied Hinpoha. "It was the Roman gold one Aunt Phoebe gave me for Christmas last year and I had Sahwah"s picture in it, that little head she had taken when she graduated."
Search was made through all of Hinpoha"s belongings, in the hope that it might have dropped into some of her numerous frills, but it could not be found.
"I suppose I lost it in the scramble when we got out of the train,"
Hinpoha sighed regretfully, "and that"s the end of it. Oh, dear, will I ever learn not to be so careless with my things?" And thoroughly impatient with herself, Hinpoha marched off to bed.
CHAPTER VI
A SURPRISE IN STORE FOR HILLSDALE
Sahwah stood in the long parlor under the portrait of Elizabeth Carver, gazing, with an expression of great respect, mingled with envy, up into the vivacious young face. The eyes in the picture gazed back just as intently at her, with a deep humorous twinkle lurking in their depths, and the red lips curving upwards at the corners in the promise of a smile seemed just about to speak. To Sahwah it did not seem to be a painting, a creation of oil on canvas, it was a real girl, Elizabeth Carver herself. She smiled back into the eyes that smiled at her, like two real girls who have just been introduced to each other and feel instinctively at the moment of introduction that they are going to like each other tremendously. Quite naturally, just as she would have done with a flesh-and-blood person, Sahwah began talking aloud.
"That was a wonderfully brave thing you did, saving your lover"s life that way," she said admiringly. "I wish I had known you. I think we would have been good friends. We would have had no end of fun swimming together. Could you do Trudgeon, and Australian Crawl? Or couldn"t you swim? Girls didn"t swim as much in your day as they do now, I believe.
It"s because the side stroke wasn"t invented then. But you could ride horseback. I haven"t done much of that, I never had a horse, but I know I could ride if I had the chance. But I can paddle a canoe, standing on the gunwales--could you do that?"
Sahwah paused anxiously, as if half fearing the accomplished Colonial maid would also claim this, her most cherished attainment. But Elizabeth gave no sign that she could rival Sahwah"s prowess with the canoe, and Sahwah, made affable by the knowledge of her own powers, went on graciously, "You could play on the harp, though, and of course I can"t,"
She laid her hand on the gilt frame of the harp that stood at her side, and looked at its wires and pedals respectfully. She did not venture to play upon it, as Hinpoha had done, somehow she didn"t quite dare, with Elizabeth there looking on.
"You must have looked beautiful playing on it," resumed Sahwah in soft, musing tones. "No wonder the man named Paul fell in love with you. And to think you saved his life! I wish _I_ could save a man"s life. Oh, wouldn"t I have had the adventures, though, if I had lived in your time!" Sahwah had unconsciously clasped her hands, and stood looking up at Elizabeth with a world of envy and longing in her eyes.
Voices in the room behind her brought her back to the present. She turned, and there was Hinpoha with two strange girls.
"Oh, Sahwah, are you alone?" said Hinpoha in surprise. "I thought some of the rest were in here with you, I was sure I heard talking here when I came in. I want you to meet Agony and Oh-Pshaw, whose father you have already met. You remember my writing to you about the Heavenly Twins, the Wings, the famous Flying Column of the cla.s.s? I was just on my way to hunt them up this morning when I met them on the street. They were just on _their_ way to hunt _us_ up. Girls, this is our Sahwah, once named Sarah Ann Brewster, but now only Sahwah the Sunfish."
Sahwah came forward, radiating smiles, to meet the twins about whom she had heard so much, and grasped their hands with delighted cordiality.
"Agony and Oh-Pshaw!" she exclaimed. "What delicious names!"
"Oh, we have baptismal names among our goods and chattels, too," said the twin whom Sahwah held by the right hand. "They are very good names, too, in their way, even Alta and Agnes, but you"re not to use them under any circ.u.mstances. You"re to call us Agony and Oh-Pshaw the same as everybody does."
Sahwah started at the deep, rich tones of Agony"s voice. People invariably did when they heard it for the first time. It rolled and reverberated like the lowest tones of a cathedral organ. Although low-pitched and well-modulated, it had a peculiar penetrating quality, which made it carry for a surprisingly long distance.
Gladys and Migwan, upstairs putting their room to rights, heard it and came rushing down into the parlor to fling themselves upon the Twins with loud cries of joy.
"Agony! It"s been _years_ since I"ve seen you!"
"Gladys! I simply can"t get used to going _to_ bed without shouting good-night through the transom to you!"
"Hinpoha, my angel of light, come to my arms once more! Come sit on my knee and tell me all your adventures since you went home from college!"
Just then Nyoda came into the room and raptures were interrupted by new introductions.
"Twins!" said Nyoda delightedly. "And just alike, too! How am I going to tell you apart?"