Mr. Paul Shaw left the next morning.
"I"ll try and run up for a day or two, before the girls go to school," he promised his sister-in-law. "Let me know, as soon as you have decided _where_ to send them."
Patience was divided in her opinion, as to this new plan. It would be lonesome without Paul and Hilary; but then, for the time being, she would be, to all intents and purposes, "Miss Shaw." Also, Bedelia was not going to boarding-school--on the whole, the arrangement had its advantages. Of course, later, she would have her turn at school--Patience meant to devote a good deal of her winter"s reading to boarding-school stories.
She told s.e.xtoness Jane so, when that person appeared, just before supper time.
Jane looked impressed. "A lot of things keep happening to you folks right along," she observed. "Nothing"s ever happened to me, "cept mumps--and things of that sort; you wouldn"t call them interesting. The girls to home?"
"They"re "round on the porch, looking at some photos Mr. Oram"s brought over; and he"s looking at Hilary"s. Hilary"s going in for some other kind of picture taking. I wish she"d leave her camera home, when she goes to school. Do you want to speak to them about anything particular?"
"I"ll wait a bit," Jane sat down on the garden-bench beside Patience.
"There, he"s gone!" the latter said, as the front gate clicked a few moments later. "O Paul!" she called, "You"re wanted, Paul!"
"You and Hilary going to be busy tonight?" Jane asked, as Pauline came across the lawn.
"Not that I know of."
"I ain"t," Patience remarked.
"Well," Jane said, "it ain"t prayer-meeting night, and it ain"t young peoples" night and it ain"t choir practice night, so I thought maybe you"d like me to take my turn at showing you something. Not all the club--like"s not they wouldn"t care for it, but if you think they would, why, you can show it to them sometime."
"Just we three then?" Pauline asked.
"Hilary and I can go."
"So can I--if you tell mother you want me to," Patience put in.
"Is it far?" her sister questioned Jane.
"A good two miles--we"d best walk--we can rest after we get there. Maybe, if you like, you"d better ask Tom and Josie. Your ma"ll be better satisfied if he goes along, I reckon. I"ll come for you at about half-past seven."
"All right, thank you ever so much," Pauline said, and went to tell Hilary, closely pursued by Patience. However, Mrs. Shaw vetoed Pauline"s proposition that Patience should make one of the party.
"Not every time, my dear," she explained.
Promptly at half-past seven Jane appeared. "All ready?" she said, as the four young people came to meet her. "You don"t want to go expecting anything out of the common. Like"s not, you"ve all seen it a heap of times, but maybe not to take particular notice of it."
She led the way through the garden to the lane running past her cottage, where Tobias sat in solitary dignity on the doorstep, down the lane to where it merged in to what was nothing more than a field path.
"Are we going to the lake?" Hilary asked.
Jane nodded.
"But not out on the water," Josie said.
"You"re taking us too far below the pier for that."
Jane smiled quietly. "It"ll be on the water--what you"re going to see," she was getting a good deal of pleasure out of her small mystery, and when they reached the low sh.o.r.e, fringed with the tall sea-gra.s.s, she took her party a few steps along it to where an old log lay a little back from the water. "I reckon we"ll have to wait a bit," she said, "but it"ll be "long directly."
They sat down in a row, the young people rather mystified. Apparently the broad expanse of almost motionless water was quite deserted. There was a light breeze blowing and the soft swishing of the tiny waves against the bank was the only sound to break the stillness; the sky above the long irregular range of mountains on the New York side, still wore its sunset colors, the lake below sending hack a faint reflection of them.
But presently these faded until only the afterglow was left, to merge in turn into the soft summer twilight, through which the stars began to glimpse, one by one.
The little group had been mostly silent, each busy with his or her thoughts; so far as the young people were concerned, happy thoughts enough; for if the closing of each day brought their summer nearer to its ending, the fall would bring with it new experiences, an entering of new scenes.
"There!" s.e.xtoness Jane broke the silence, pointing up the lake, to where a tiny point of red showed like a low-hung star through the gathering darkness. Moment by moment, other lights came into view, silently, steadily, until it seemed like some long, gliding sea-serpent, creeping down towards them through the night.
"A tow!" Josie cried under her breath.
They had all seen it, times without number, before. The long line of ca.n.a.l boats being towed down the lake to the ca.n.a.l below; the red lanterns at either end of each boat showing as they came. But to-night, infected perhaps, by the pride, the evident delight, in Jane"s voice, the old familiar sight held them with the new interest the past months had brought to bear upon so many old, familiar things.
"It is--wonderful," Pauline said at last.
"It might be a scene from--fairyland, almost."
"Me--I love to see them come stealing long like that through the dark," Jane said slowly and a little hesitatingly. It was odd to be telling confidences to anyone except Tobias.
"I don"t know where they come from, nor where they"re a-going to. Many"s the night I walk over here just on the chance of seeing one. Mostly, this time of year, you"re pretty likely to catch one. When I was younger, I used to sit and fancy myself going aboard on one of them and setting off for strange parts.
I wasn"t looking to settle down here in Winton all my days; but I reckon, maybe, it"s just"s well--anyhow, when I got the freedom to travel, I"d got out of the notion of it--and perhaps, there"s no telling, I might have been terribly disappointed. And there ain"t any hindrance "gainst my setting off--in my own mind--every time I sits here and watches a tow go down the lake. I"ve seen a heap of big churches in my travels--it"s mostly easier "magining about them--churches are pretty much alike I reckon, though I ain"t seen many, I"ll admit."
No one answered for a moment, but Jane, used to Tobias for a listener, did not mind.
Then in the darkness, Hilary laid a hand softly over the work-worn ones clasped on Jane"s lap. It was hard to imagine Jane young and full of youthful fancies and longings; yet years ago there had been a Jane--not s.e.xtoness Jane then--who had found Winton dull and dreary and had longed to get away. But for her, there had been no one to wave the magic wand, that should transform the little Vermont village into a place filled with new and unexplored charms. Never in all Jane"s many summers, had she known one like this summer of theirs; and for them--the wonder was by no means over--the years ahead were bright with untold possibilities.
Hilary sighed for very happiness, wondering if she were the same girl who had rocked listlessly in the hammock that June morning, protesting that she didn"t care for "half-way" things.
"Tired?" Pauline asked.
"I was thinking," her sister answered.
"Well, the tow"s gone." Jane got up to go.
"I"m ever so glad we came, thank you so much, Jane," Pauline said heartily.
"I wonder what"ll have happened by the time we all see our next tow go down," Josie said, as they started towards home.
"We may see a good many more than one before the general exodus," her brother answered.
"But we won"t have time to come watch for them. Oh, Paul, just think, only a little while now--"
Tom slipped into step with Hilary, a little behind the others. "I never supposed the old soul had it in her," he said, glancing to where Jane trudged heavily on ahead. "Still, I suppose she was young--once; though I"ve never thought of her being so before."
"Yes," Hilary said. "I wonder,--maybe, she"s been better off, after all, right, here at home. She wouldn"t have got to be s.e.xtoness Jane anywhere else, probably."
Tom glanced at her quickly. "Is there a hidden meaning--subject to be carefully avoided?"
Hilary laughed. "As you like."
"So you and Paul are off on your travels, too?"
"Yes, though I can hardly believe it yet."
"And just as glad to go as any of us."