Chapter XV: A Clear Day

Mark came singing over to the buckboard in the morning. He sang a tune of his own, but the words were Tweedledee’s.

“‘Oh, Oysters,’ said the Carpenter,
‘You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.’

“You aren’t eaten, are you? I sure thought you were going to be last night! My goodness gracious, but you did yell! And all about Bunkie!” he cried.

“Bunkie feels as awful as a wild animal when you don’t see him, and his nose’s just as cold!” Poppy answered, and her manner was far colder than poor Bunkie’s nose could have been. “Anyhow, I just got right out; I didn’t yell, nor anything.”

“Well, then, as long as you aren’t eaten you’ll be trotting home again?” Mark returned to the idea of his song. “Mr. Burke told me to tell you that it was going to be ‘a day right off the griddle’--that’s exactly what he said--and that he wanted to start back early. So you get ready for breakfast--the only thing you’ve got to do when you don’t undress is to wash your face and hands in the spring over there--and we’ll soon break camp.”

Mark ran back to make himself useful in the preparation of breakfast, taking out the food that they had brought with them, carrying sticks for the fire to boil the coffee which Mrs. Burke, who was an experienced camper, was to make for herself and her husband; the children were to drink the water from the nearby spring, cold and delicious as only spring water can be.

“Now, pack up; every one of us is to get at it, an’ we’ll be off for Greenacres in good time. It’ll be one of the days when you’ve got to take a step-ladder to read the thermometer, the mercury’s going that high! We’ll get as far’s we can before it is too uppish, an’ let the horses have a noontide rest, in a shady place, for a good bit. Cork is going to want it, an’ Hurrah’ll have not a word against it,” said Mr. Burke, setting an example by gathering up his cup and saucer and throwing his paper plate on the fire.

“Cork! Is that your horse’s name? I don’t think I ever heard his name before, Mr. Burke,” cried Isabel, laughing. “How funny!”

“I’d like to know what’s funny about it?” said Mr. Burke. “My father come from County Cork, for one thing. An’ for another, ain’t I the bottle man? An’ what goes better with a bottle than a cork, would ye be tellin’ me?”

“Yes, but you pull corks, and this Cork pulls you!” laughed Isabel.

“Sure; isn’t turn about fair play? He’s payin’ the debts of his namesakes! Now, then, let’s set Cork to pullin’ us as soon’s may be, for in no time we’ll feel like St. Lawrence when they roasted him over the fire, barrin’ his sanctity,” said Mr. Burke, and he pushed Poppy before him a few steps in the direction of the buckboard to emphasize his wish.

There was little to do to get this small gypsying party started. In twenty minutes they were going along the road at a good pace, the rested horses not unwilling to trot, especially as they were headed homeward.

All four children were on the buckboard this time, the wagon ahead.

“I’ll go first,” said Mr. Burke, “an’ if I see any poster, or the like, gambolin’ along the road, I’ll meet it first an’ politely hold it up, askin’ it to let me roll it up an’ take it in, as the fine gentleman haulin’ the equipage in the rear of me wagon is that nervous he’d never be able to stand the sight of it.”

Following this arrangement, therefore, Hurrah came trotting along behind Cork, in the big wagon, holding his head up and showing no sense of disgrace at his scandalous behavior when he was going in the opposite direction the day before.

The children chattered happily, but quietly; the country road was soothing, lined with beauty on either hand. Not a bird escaped Mark’s trained eye, taught as he had been by his father to know them and to imitate their notes. Sometimes he would lay his hand over Poppy’s, holding the lines, and stop Hurrah while he whistled to some small feathered acquaintance he spied on a shrub. The bird would answer the note, mistaking it for the call of one of his nearer kin than this brown boy who, nevertheless, always seemed to Isabel and Prue near kindred to the birds.

So they jogged on pleasantly homeward, with a long nooning, as Mr. Burke had planned. The day grew almost unbearably hot as the sun mounted, but the road was shady, so the heat was somewhat softened, though there was little air under the trees. Isabel and Prue tipped over against each other and fell asleep. Poppy was wide awake, giving her whole mind to driving, and Mark waked with her, giving his whole mind--though Poppy did not know it--to seeing that nothing went wrong because she drove.

Isabel sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“Mercy, my neck is cracked! It’s all stiff holding my head on one side!” she said.

“What do you think of me?” demanded Prue, also waking. “My shoulder is more than cracked; it’s ruined, holding your head! Where are we; near home, Mark?”

“Not so far from it,” said Mark. “Ought to be about an hour more getting there.”

“I’ve been thinking----” began Isabel.

“Never would have guessed it! Any one would have guessed you were asleep,” interrupted Mark.

“Jack-in-the-Box, go down into your box and pull the lid down; you’re impertinent, sir!”

Isabel pretended to be angry. “I thought before I went to sleep, and while I was waking up; kind of a sleep sandwich, with thinking between! And I was thinking that something must happen to keep you from going away, Mark. It just plain _must_!”

“I don’t see what can,” Mark began, but got no farther.

“I say don’t talk about it,” Prue said firmly. “We came to gypsy, and have a good time, and I say let’s have it to the end. It’s hot enough, too! Isa, will you take Bunkie a while? I’ve held him all this time, and he’s just like a chestnut roaster; he’s burning right through my skirt, and cramping me besides! Take your ragged little dog and let me stretch.”

“Little scalawag to follow us! But I’m glad he found us, as long as he came!” commented Isabel, relieving patient Prue of Bunkie’s warmth and weight.

The subject of losing Mark was thus dropped for the time, and it was not long before the gypsies turned in at the gate of the Hawthorne house. They stirred Cork and Hurrah up to their best speed, drove up singing, “Marching Through Georgia,” which Poppy had said was “Hurrah’s national hymn,” because of the words of its chorus.

Motherkins hastened out to meet them, but she looked pale and her eyes showed that they had lately been swollen with tears.

There, on the piazza, stood trunks, three of them, new ones, with their lids set back against the wall, as if waiting to be filled!

Mark laid a hand on the buckboard wheel and vaulted it to run up the steps and seize his tiny grandmother, who always seemed too young and too small for that title, around the waist and kiss her hard.

“Motherkins, little wee Motherkins, what are these for?” he cried, pointing to the trunks.

“Oh, Mark, dear, I can’t bear to have your pleasant trip end in grief! We did not look for you till to-morrow,” Motherkins said.

“Hurrah got scared and ran away; it wasn’t safe to let Poppy drive further, so we came back,” Mark said, forgetting that Poppy was not to know why Mr. Burke had changed his plans, and not seeing the anger with which she heard him. “What do you mean by grief, Motherkins? What is wrong?” Mark asked, almost as if he were grown up.

“Your father, dear, has found that he must leave here at once, since he is to go, or else lose the business opening which is too good to lose. So we are to go away from Greenacres within a few days. Oh, Isabel, Isabel, I know, and I’m so sorry, dear child! But, remember, it is hard for us, too.” Gentle Motherkins patted Isabel’s head and smoothed her hair, as, with a cry, she threw herself into Motherkins’ arms and sobbed uncontrolledly.

There was a sad supper eaten in silence by Poppy and Mark at the Hawthorne house, by Isabel and Prue in their own homes. It did not seem possible that they had all been light-hearted and had set out pleasuring so short a time ago. As long as the Hawthornes were not to leave Greenacres until September the children could postpone grief at parting. But trunks all ready to receive their contents! The parting but a week distant! Ah, there was no shaking off this horrible reality.

“Mark will come to us summers, Isa, darling; I have that promise. We shall not lose him,” Mrs. Lindsay strove to console Isabel, whose head lay on her mother’s shoulder as they sat in the deep window seat spending “Isabel’s hour” together at the close of this eventful day.

“We shall not lose him, we shall keep friends, but, oh, mother, a friend on a telephone, or writing letters, is not the same at all as a friend where you can touch him!” sighed Isabel, and Mrs. Lindsay could not answer. She knew better than Isabel could, with her longer experience, that separation is a wedge that often makes friends completely forget.

Early in the morning Isabel and Prue met Mark and Poppy by appointment at Château Branche.

There had been a shower in the night which had refreshed the heated earth and put new beauty into every growing thing and had left them all shining with brilliance in the early morning sunshine.

Birds were singing everywhere, the birds which Mark could name and call. Flowers brightened the woods here and there; Mark knew them all. How everything was going to speak of Mark and emphasize his loss when he was gone! And Poppy! Funny, excitable, explosive, but honorable, devoted, high-hearted little Poppy! Isabel and Prue felt that her plain face was almost beautiful when they realized that they were not long to see it.

Mark sat whittling, whistling between his tight closed teeth. He was so miserable that he did not attempt to disguise it, nor to speak. For once Poppy was not talking. Pale under her many brown freckles, her lips drawn and drooping, she stared at Isa, trying to learn her face by heart to take away with her each detail of its sweetness.

“Let’s go over to the Toy Shop,” said Prue.

No one answered, but one after another they all slid down from Château Branche to follow Prue, knowing that she wanted to go there because it was the spot in the woods where she and Isa had found their Jack-in-the-Box. They went along single file, till Poppy stepped back and, without a word, put her arm around Isabel’s waist.

The Toy Shop was a pleasant little glade; on one side of it was the hidden opening to the secret passage up to the Hawthorne house. As they came into the Toy Shop now, there, just outside the bushes which concealed this opening, sat the queer little man whom now they knew as Ichabod Lemuel Rudd.

“Jiminy cribs! Look who’s here!” cried Poppy, as Prue fairly shouted:

“Ichabod Lemuel Rudd!” as if she had gone to school with him.

“Good morning, young ladies,” said Ichabod, in his high falsetto voice.

“And good morning to you, Gilbert Hawthorne’s boy! Now, what I want to say is: Take me right on to your father, and do it quick, ’cause I’ve got my mind on it, and cats can’t say how long it will stay set!”

“All right; come on,” said Mark, taking this as part of the strange doings of recent days and not stopping to discuss why cats should be able to tell how long Ichabod’s mind would stay set.

“That’s the ticket!” said Ichabod, in evident relief. “If you knew what a time I’ve had! I’ve fairly hung around. Been down in that secret passage--I found it when I fell into it--and going up to the house, and then going back----”

“Secret passage! You found the box of coins in there?” cried Mark.

“Returned ’em, too, undisturbed. More’n could be said of me, these days,” said Ichabod, nodding hard. “Been skinning up outside the house, into a room where I judged you youngsters played----”

“What!” cried all four children together.

“Sure!” said Ichabod. “Once I slept there. And yet I couldn’t make up my mind to tell what I’m going to tell to-day--provided you get me there quick enough. I tell you, Gilbert Hawthorne’s boy, I’ve been that exercised in my mind, what with wanting to do one right, and wanting to do another right----There, if we talk about it I may slip my cogs and not tell!”

“Sure, you’ll tell!” said Mark, beginning to feel that there really must be something important behind all this. “And it was you came up into our Club Room! And you slept there? And you took out our cups----”

“Not to steal ’em!” cried Ichabod quickly. “They’re safe. I needed ’em for tea, so I borrowed ’em, but I’ve got ’em for you.”

“And we thought maybe it was Kathie!” said Prue, as one talking in her sleep.

“Been troublous times. Trouble for your father, and in my mind! Oh, jiminy cats, are we there? Oh, I’d rather do a whole lot of worse things than tell!” cried Ichabod, as they came suddenly upon the house from the side entrance.

“Daddy, daddy, come here, quick!” Mark called, as he ran ahead of the rest up the steps.

But Mr. Hawthorne was out under the trees; he came forward from the opposite side of the house from that around which the children emerged.

“Oh, jiminy cats and jiminy kittens!” cried Ichabod Rudd. “As sure as death, ’tis you, Gilbert Hawthorne!”

“Well,” said Mr. Hawthorne, “it doesn’t seem to me strange that I should be myself.”

“No, not put that way, but it’s strange to me to see you at last, when I’ve been backing and filling about seeing you for dear knows how long! I’ve been hanging around here, climbing up outside your house, getting into a room on that rear side. Been up to every sort of hanging around stunt! Once I asked a bottle dealer about you, but when I found he did know you I faded right out,” said Ichabod earnestly. “I guess I’ll fade now. Glad to have seen you, Mr. Gilbert.” He turned as if to go rapidly away, but Mark caught him.

“Not much!” he cried. “Whatever this thing is you’ve got to tell, tell it and get it over with, quick!”

“Is there something you want to say to me? Shall we go inside? Where have I ever seen you? I have a sort of recollection of seeing you somewhere,” said Mr. Hawthorne.

“I don’t mind the kids,” said Ichabod. He began to speak quickly, as if he were in danger of not speaking, and he got his strange tale over with briefly.

“You saw me once at Mr. Ditson’s house. I worked for him for years. He was the best friend to me I ever could have had. He liked me; I loved him. His son is putting up a job to get the money his father left you. He don’t need it; he has too much. He near killed his father, sorrowing over him. I got the proof it’s a put-up job. I can prove the money’s yours. I hated to speak because, after all, Maurice is a Ditson. But he near killed his father, and his father wanted you to have the money. I always tried to do what my dear old employer wanted done; alive or dead, I’ve always tried to please him. So I hated to tell on his son, but I had to tell to get his way for Mr. Ditson. Take me down to the lawyer’s and I’ll come over with the goods. I can prove by line and word, written and my own knowledge, that Maurice Ditson has faked the whole plot. There! It’s told!”

For a moment no one spoke. Gilbert Hawthorne looked steadily into the eyes of the queer little man, but they never flinched.

“Ichabod Rudd----”

“Ichabod Lemuel Rudd,” said the little man.

“Ichabod Lemuel Rudd.” Mr. Hawthorne adopted the correction with a slight smile. “We were getting ready to give up all that we love, our home and its associations, for I have bought back my mother’s old home with part of Mr. Ditson’s legacy. I don’t know how to tell you what this means to us. And two days ago you caught the horse, and perhaps saved the children from a horrible accident. I think it is safe to say that Mr. Ditson would bless and thank you, if he could speak to you. I think he does bless and thank you, but that we are not able to hear it. I hope he will; I can’t!”

“It was right,” said Ichabod Lemuel Rudd, struggling with strong emotion. “I hated to give away a Ditson, but Maurice was the worst sorrow his father ever had; my dear old master told me so. And he had money enough, anyway.”

“Come in and see my little mother; you’ll love her, too,” said Mr. Hawthorne, and gently drew the queer little man into the house.

The children stood motionless, gazing after them and at one another, speechless.

Then the great truth rushed over them, and they fell upon one another, yelling like Comanches, even gentle Isa and staid Prue equaling Poppy in yelling.

“We’ve got you all, we’ve got our Jack-in-the-Box forever, ever, ever!” screamed Isabel, and Prue and Poppy and Mark joined her, madly echoing:

“Forever, ever, ever, forever!”