The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors

They were crossing a pretty little stream that intersected the road. Of course Bobby took occasion to slip off the stepping-stones and get his foot wet.

“S’long as one is wet I reckon I might as well get th’ other one wet, too,” and he stepped boldly into the stream. “Sqush! Sqush! Ain’t this a grand and glorious feeling?”

“Oh, Bobby!” chorused his sisters.

“’Tain’t gonter make no diffunce! My ’ployer says sech things as this toughen kids.”

Bobby always called Dr. Wright his employer, as it had been his habit to go with that young physician while he was making his professional calls, his duties being to hold out his arm when they were turning corners or preparing to stop; and to sit in the car and guard his ’ployer’s property from the depredations of hoodlums and micks.

“I don’t think some kids need toughening,” said Nan, trying to look severe.

“Yes’n I gotter joke on you, too! They was a pretty near grown-up boy on the train wanted to know what yo’ name was. I was jawin’ the inductor an’ the boy comed and plunked hissef down by me an’ he axed me what was my name and where I was a-gointer, an’ was all’n you my aunts or what. He was so busy a-findin’ out he come near a-missing his gettin’ off place. He lives jus’ befo’ our gettin’ off place.”

“Oh, that must have been the good-looking boy sitting opposite us, just behind Mother and Father! You noticed him, Douglas, didn’t you?” asked Helen.

“Well, he wasn’t a-noticin’ you much,” proceeded the enfant terrible. “He wanted mostly to know what was Nan’s name an’ where she went to school.”

“Surely you didn’t tell him!” blushed Nan.

“Sho’ nix! I told him yo’ name was Lizajane an’ you was a-clerkin’ in the five an’ ten.”

“Oh, Bobby!”

Nobody could help laughing at the saucy youngster, and his sisters were ever inclined to find him amusing and altogether delightful in spite of his outrageousness. Their laughter rang out clear and infectious. First they laughed at Bobby and then they laughed for the pure joy of laughing. Douglas forgot her burdens and responsibilities; Helen forgot how she hated to be poor; Nan forgot that the quarter of a mile she was going to have to trudge twice a day to join the army of commuters was much nearer half a mile and she was not a very energetic girl; Lucy had nothing to forget or regret, being only thirteen with a perfect digestion. For the moment all of them forgot the nerve-worn father and the hypochondriacal mother waiting so forlornly at the station with the luggage piled so hopelessly at one end.

In the midst of their gale of laughter they heard the hum of a motor and the toot of a horn. A large touring car came swerving around the curve in the road.

“That’s him now!” cried the delighted Bobby.

It was no other than the boy on the train. He stopped his car and with crimson face began to stammer forth unintelligible words.

“Excuse me! – but – that is a – you see I – Oh, hang it all! er – my name is William – Will – Billy Sutton.”

“Oh, he’s plum nutty an’ thinks he’s Billy Sunday – Billy Nut Sunday!” and Bobby danced gleefully in his squshy shoes.

“Bobby! Behave yourself!” said Douglas, trying to swallow the laugh she was in the midst of.

“We was jes’ a-talkin’ about you,” said Bobby, with his most disarming smile.

“About me?” and the young fellow choked his engine.

“Yes, I was a-tellin’ – ”

But here Helen took her little brother in hand. Helen could usually manage him better than any of the others. She whispered some mysterious something to him which quickly sobered him.

“I don’t want you to think I am impertinent or interfering, but your little brother told me on the train coming out that your mother and father were both ill – ”

“Yes, I told him they were likely to die mos’ any time.”

“And I heard at the post-office at Preston, where I live, that you have rented the farm from the Misses Grant; also that those ladies were not expecting you until tomorrow – ”

“But I wrote we would be there today, Wednesday!” exclaimed Douglas.

“That doesn’t make a bit of difference to Miss Ella and Miss Louise Grant,” laughed the boy. “They never get anything straight because they discuss every subject so thoroughly that they are all mixed up before they get through. Anyhow, they did not meet you, and if you don’t think I am pushing or forward or something – ”

“Butinsky!” suggested Bobby, but Helen slipped her hand over his pert little mouth.

“Thank you for that word – butinsky – why, I should like the privilege of going after your mother and father and bringing all the luggage my car will hold.”

“Oh, you are too kind!” chorused the girls.

“Let me take all of you first to the farm.”

“We must go by Grantly to let the ladies know we are here,” suggested Douglas.

“They are both of them at the farm. I saw them as I came by.”

“Did you tell them we had come?”

“No! They were sure to let me know it was none of my business, and, as I was fully aware of the fact, I just drove on by, hoping to be of more service to you in this way.”

The girls and Bobby piled into the car assisted by the boy, who handed them in with pleasing gallantry. By adroit manœuvering he managed to get Nan in front, although the irrepressible did squeeze in, too.

“I must sit in front so I can poke out my arm. Maybe you is huntin’ a shover. I’m Dr. Wright’s shover in town an’ up’n the mountings. He don’t mind my having two jobs in off times when he ain’t a-needin’ me.”

“Well, then, I’ll employ you right now,” said Billy Sutton, solemnly.

“I think maybe it is in order for us to introduce ourselves,” said Douglas. “This is Helen Carter; and this, Nan; and this, Lucy; I am Douglas; and Bobby has already been noticed enough.”

Hands were shaken and then they started gaily off.

“It seems a long quarter of a mile from the station to the farm, but maybe it is because I am lazy,” said Nan, who was unfeignedly glad of a lift.

“Who said it was only a quarter of a mile? It is exactly three quarters.”

Two minutes brought them to the farm gate, where Billy deposited the occupants of the back seat. It was decided that Nan and Bobby were to go on to the station with their new friend and benefactor and explain him to Mr. and Mrs. Carter.

“Oh, Douglas, isn’t the place sweet? Lucy, don’t you like it?” asked Helen as they opened the big gate that led from the road into the lawn of their new abode.

“Great! It looks so romantical.”

“I was so afraid it wasn’t going to be as nice as we thought it was because the real estate agent was so glib and rattled on so he confused us. I was afraid he had hypnotized us into liking it. But it is lovely,” and Douglas breathed a great sigh of relief.

Indeed it was lovely; lovelier, I fancy, than the real estate agent dreamed. The lawn was spacious, with soft rolling contours and a few great trees, some of them centuries old. In the front a mighty oak stood guard at one corner and an elm at another. Nearer the house a straight young ash and a willow oak divided the honors. At one side of the quaint old house a great mock orange had established a precedent for mock oranges and grown into a tree, just to show what a mock orange is capable of when not confined to the limitations of a hedge. Its trunk was gnarled and twisted and because of careful pruning of lower branches it had grown like a huge umbrella with limbs curving out from the parent stem and almost touching the ground all around.

“What a grand place to play house and tell secrets!” thought Lucy, regretting that thirteen years old, almost fourteen, was too great an age to indulge in dolly tea parties.

A grove of gum trees glorified the back yard with their brilliant October foliage. There never was such a red as the gum tree boasts and these huge specimens were one blaze of color. The trunks had taken on a hoary tone that contrasted pleasantly with the warm tints of the leaves.