"Yes?" said Elizabeth questioningly, and looking around with a dubious frown. "It would need a lot of changing, I should think. You would want hardwood floors, and lots of rugs, and some part.i.tions and windows----"
"Oh, no," said Shirley, laughing. "We"re not hardwood people, dear; we"re just plain hard-working people; and all we need is a quiet, sweet place to rest in. It"s going to be just heavenly here, with that tree outside to shade the doorway, and all this wide s.p.a.ce to walk around in. We live in a little narrow city house now, and never have any place to get out except the street. We"ll have the birds and the brook for orchestra, and we won"t need palms, because the trees and vines will soon be in leaf and make a lovely screen for our orchestra. I imagine at night the stars will have almost as many colors as electrics."
Elizabeth looked at her with puzzled eyes, but half convinced.
"Well, yes, perhaps they would," she said, and smiled. "I"ve never thought of them that way, but it sounds very pretty, quite like some of Browning"s poetry that I don"t understand, or was it Mrs. Browning? I can"t quite remember."
Sidney Graham, investigating the loft above them, stood a moment watching the tableau and listening to the conversation, though they could not see him; and he thought within himself that it might not be a bad thing for his little sister, with her boarding-school rearing, to get near to these true-hearted young working people, who yet were dreamers and poets, and get her standards somewhat modified by theirs.
He was especially delighted with the gentle, womanly way in which Shirley answered the girl now when she thought herself alone with her.
George and Carol had grasped hold of hands and run wildly down the slope to the brook after a most casual glance at the interior of the barn. Elizabeth now turned her dainty high-heeled boots in the brook"s direction, and Shirley was left alone to walk the length and breadth of her new abode and make some real plans.
The young man in the dim loft above watched her for a moment as she stood looking from one wall to the other, measuring distances with her eye, walking quickly over to the window and rubbing a clear s.p.a.ce on the dusty pane with her handkerchief that she might look out. She was a goodly sight, and he could not help comparing her with the girls he knew, though their garments would have far outshone hers. Still, even in the shabby dark-blue serge suit she seemed lovely.
The young people returned as precipitately as they had gone, and both Carol and George of their own accord joined Shirley in a brief council of war. Graham thoughtfully called his sister away, ostensibly to watch a squirrel high in the big tree, but really to admonish her about making no further propositions like that for the party, as the young people to whom he had introduced her were not well off, and had no money or time for elaborate entertainments.
"But they"re lovely, Sid, aren"t they? Don"t you like them just awfully? I know you do, or you wouldn"t have taken the trouble to bring them out here in the car with us. Say, you"ll bring me to see them often after they come here to live, won"t you?"
"Perhaps," said her brother smilingly. "But hadn"t you better wait until they ask you?"
"Oh, they"ll ask me," said Elizabeth with a charming smile and a confident little toss of her head. "I"ll make them ask me."
"Be careful, kid," he said, still smiling. "Remember, they won"t have much money to offer you entertainment with, and probably their things are very plain and simple. You may embarra.s.s them if you invite yourself out."
Elizabeth raised her azure eyes to her brother"s face thoughtfully for a moment, then smiled back confidently once more.
"Don"t you worry, Sid, dear; there"s more than one way. I won"t hurt their feelings, but they"re going to ask me, and they"re going to want me, and I"m going to come. Yes, and you"re going to bring me!"
She turned with a laughing pirouette, and danced down the length of the barn to Carol, catching her hand and whirling her after her in a regular childish frolic.
"Well, do you think we ought to take it? Do you think I dare give my final word without consulting mother?" Shirley asked her brother when they were thus left alone for a minute.
"Sure thing! No mistake! It"s simply _great_. You couldn"t get a place like this if you went the length and breadth of the city and had a whole lot more money than you have to spend."
"But remember it"s a barn!" said Shirley impressively. "Mother may mind that very much."
"Not when she sees it," said Carol, whirling back to the consultation.
"She"ll think it"s the sensiblest thing we ever did. She isn"t foolish like that. We"ll tell her we"ve found a place to camp with a shanty attached, and she can"t be disappointed. I think it"ll be great. Just think how Doris can run in the gra.s.s!"
"Yes," put in George. "I was telling Carol down by the spring--before that _girl_ came and stopped us--I think we might have some chickens and raise eggs. Harley could do that, and Carol and I could raise flowers, and I could take "em to town in the morning. I could work evenings."
Shirley smiled. She almost felt like shouting that they agreed with her. The place seemed so beautiful, so almost heavenly to her when she thought of the close, dark quarters at home and the summer with its heat coming on.
"We couldn"t keep a lodger, and we"d have that much less," said Shirley thoughtfully.
"But we wouldn"t have their laundry nor their room-work to do," said Carol, "and I could have that much more time for the garden and chickens."
"You mustn"t count on being able to make much that way," said Shirley gravely. "You know nothing about gardening, and would probably make a lot of mistakes at first, anyway."
"I can make fudge and sandwiches, and take them to school to sell,"
declared Carol stoutly; "and I"ll find out how to raise flowers and parsley and little things people have to have. Besides, there"s watercress down by that brook, and people like that. We could sell that."
"Well, we"ll see," said Shirley thoughtfully, "but you mustn"t get up too many ideas yet. If we can only get moved and mother is satisfied, I guess we can get along. The rent is only ten dollars."
"Good _night_! That"s cheap enough!" said George, and drew a long whistle. Then, seeing Elizabeth approaching, he put on an indifferent air, and sauntered to the dusty window at the other end of the barn.
Sidney Graham appeared now, and took Shirley over to the east end to ask her just where she thought would be a good place to put the part.i.tion, and did she think it would be a good thing to have another one at the other end just like it? And so they stood and planned, quite as if Shirley were ordering a ten-thousand-dollar alteration put into her ten-dollar barn. Then suddenly the girl remembered her fears; and, looking straight up into the interested face of the young man, she asked earnestly:
"You are sure you were going to put in these part.i.tions? You are not making any change on my account? Because I couldn"t think of allowing you to go to any trouble or expense, you know."
Her straightforward look embarra.s.sed him.
"Why, I----" he said, growing a little flushed. "Why, you see I hadn"t been out to look things over before. I didn"t realize how much better it would be to have those in, you know. But now I intend to do it right away. Father put the whole thing in my hands to do as I pleased.
In fact, the place is mine now, and I want to put it in good shape to rent. So don"t worry yourself in the least. Things won"t go to wrack and ruin so quickly, you know, if there is someone on the place."
He finished his sentence briskly. It seemed quite plausible even to himself now, and he searched about for a change of topic.
"You think you can get on here with the rough floor? You might put padding or something under your carpets, you know, but it will take pretty large carpets----" He looked at her dubiously. To his conventional mind every step of the way was blocked by some impa.s.sable barrier. He did not honestly see how she was going to do the thing at all.
"Oh, we don"t need carpets!" laughed Shirley gayly. "We"ll spread down a rug in front of mother"s bed, and another one by the piano, and the rest will be just perfectly all right. We"re not expecting to give receptions here, you know," she added mischievously. "We"re only campers, and very grateful campers at that, too, to find a nice, clean, empty floor where we can live. The only thing that is troubling me is the cooking. I"ve been wondering if it will affect the insurance if we use an oil-stove to cook with, or would you rather we got a wood-stove and put the pipe out of one of the windows? I"ve seen people do that sometimes. Of course we could cook outdoors on a camp-fire if it was necessary, but it might be a little inconvenient rainy days."
Graham gasped at the coolness with which this slip of a girl discoursed about hardships as if they were necessities to be accepted pleasantly and without a murmur. She actually would not be daunted at the idea of cooking her meals on a fire out-of-doors! Cooking indeed! That was of course a question that people had to consider. It had never been a question that crossed his mind before. People cooked--how did they cook? By electricity, gas, coal and wood fires, of course. He had never considered it a matter to be called in any way serious. But now he perceived that it was one of the first main things to be looked out for in a home. He looked down at the waiting girl with a curious mixture of wonder, admiration, and dismay in his face.
"Why, of course you will need a fire and a kitchen," he said as if those things usually grew in houses without any help and it hadn"t occurred to him before that they were not indigenous to barns. "Well, now, I hadn"t thought of that. There isn"t any chimney here, is there?
H"m! There ought to be a chimney in every barn. It would be better for the--ah--for the hay, I should think; keep it dry, you know, and all that sort of thing. And then I should think it might be better for the animals. I must look into that matter."
"No, Mr. Graham," said Shirley decidedly. "There is no necessity for a chimney. We can perfectly well have the pipe go through a piece of tin set in the back window if you won"t object, and we can use the little oil-stove when it"s very hot if that doesn"t affect the insurance. We have a gas stove, of course, that we could bring; but there isn"t any gas in a barn."
Graham looked around blankly at the cobwebby walls as if expecting gas-jets to break forth simultaneously with his wish.
"No, I suppose not," he said, "although I should think there ought to be. In a _barn_, you know. But I"m sure there will be no objection whatever to your using any kind of a stove that will work here. This is a stone barn, you know, and I"m sure it won"t affect the insurance.
I"ll find out and let you know."
Shirley felt a trifle uneasy yet about those part.i.tions and the low price of the rent, but somehow the young man had managed to impress her with the fact that he was under no unpleasant delusions concerning herself and that he had the utmost respect for her. He stood looking down earnestly at her for a moment without saying a word, and then he began hesitatingly.
"I wish you"d let me tell you," he said frankly, "how awfully brave you are about all this, planning to come out here in this lonely place, and not being afraid of hard work, and rough floors, and a barn, and even a fire out-of-doors."
Shirley"s laugh rang out, and her eyes sparkled.
"Why, it"s the nicest thing that"s happened to me in ages," she said joyously. "I can"t hardly believe it"s true that we can come here, that we can really _afford_ to come to a great, heavenly country place like this. I suppose of course there"ll be hard things. There always are, and some of them have been just about unbearable, but even the hard things can be made fun if you try. This is going to be grand!"
and she looked around triumphantly on the dusty rafters and rough stone walls with a little air of possession.
"You are rather"--he paused--"unusual!" he finished thoughtfully as they walked toward the doorway and stood looking off at the distance.
But now Shirley had almost forgotten him in the excitement of the view.
"Just think of waking up to that every morning," she declared with a sweep of her little blue-clad arm toward the view in the distance.
"Those purply hills, the fringe of brown and green against the horizon, that white spire nestling among those evergreens! Is that a church?