Cal

 
 eita W. 
 
 THE NEWCOMERS. Illustrated. 
 SARAH BREWSTER'S RELATIVES. Il- 
 lustrated. 
 
 LOTTA EMBURY'S CAREER. Illus- 
 trated. 
 
 THE PRECIPICE. With Frontispiece. 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK
 
 THE NEWCOMERS
 
 DELIA LOOKED UP, STARTLED. . . "WHY, YES, I SAW YOUR 
 NECKLACE ON THE DRESSING-TABLE THAT DAY!" (Page 128)
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 By 
 Elia W. Peattie 
 
 With Illustrations by B. J. Rosenmeytr 
 
 Boston and New York 
 
 Houghton Mifflin Company 
 iTiiiirrsiiH' press Cambridge 
 1917
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY PERRY MASON COMPANY 
 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY.BLIA W. PEATTIE 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published September iQiy
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. A HARD-LUCK DAY I 
 
 II. HOW THE LUCK TURNED .... 21 
 
 III. PORTRAITS . . ' 40 
 
 IV. MYSTERIES 57 
 
 V. BENEVOLENT INTRUDERS .... 74 
 
 VI. THE TOPAZ NECKLACE .... 90 
 VII. THE SOFTENING OF NANCY FERRIS . .no 
 
 VIII. PROBLEMS 131 
 
 IX. THE QUINCANNONS 152 
 
 X. THE HARVEST MOON 170
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 DELIA LOOKED UP, STARTLED. . . . "WHY, YES, 
 I SAW YOUR NECKLACE ON THE DRESSING- 
 TABLE THAT DAY! " . . . .Frontispiece 
 
 "I SEE," SAID PATRICIA, "THAT YOU ARE OB- 
 SERVING THE DARK AND SUSPICIOUS GLANCES 
 HURLED BY ONE GROUP OF OUR TOWNS- 
 PEOPLE AT THE OTHER GROUP " . . . -52 
 
 WHEN HE RECOGNIZED HER, THE SMILE GAVE 
 PLACE TO A FROWN 98 
 
 JUST THEN ANNIE DEE DASHED UP . . .158 
 
 From drawings by B. J. Rosenmeyer, reproduced by courtesy 
 of The Youth's Companion.
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A HARD-LUCK DAY 
 
 " IN half an hour/' said Rue Wardell, look- 
 ing at her wrist watch, "we'll be there." 
 
 Annie Dee Wardell, who had a wrist watch 
 of her own, consulted it for confirmation. 
 "Time to get our things together," she de- 
 clared. 
 
 Their brother, Robert Wardell, carried 
 his watch in his pocket, but he pretended to 
 consult his brown, muscular wrist. 
 
 "Dear me," he said in a voice such as his 
 sisters might be expected to use, but did not, 
 "I'm so fluttered! Where's my parasol?" 
 
 His sisters paid no attention to him. It 
 was not good for him to know that they were 
 secretly flattered by his impertinences. His 
 mother, to be sure, did go the length of say- 
 ing, "Don't be foolish, Robert." But she 
 really was pleased to have him foolish, and
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 her mild reproof was only a sign that she was, 
 as her son had put it, rather "fluttered." 
 
 There would have been some excuse for 
 her and for the others if they had shown 
 worry, for they were out on a hazard of new 
 fortunes. They had cut loose from their ac- 
 customed moorings, and for the first time 
 were going among strangers. But, as Mrs. 
 Wardell had said over and over again, it 
 hardly seemed that a family brought up in 
 so big a city as Chicago ought to fear a little 
 town like Dalroy. 
 
 Mrs. Wardell herself had not been born in 
 Chicago. Indeed, she had not left the pleas- 
 ant Massachusetts village where she had 
 grown up until she went to share the for- 
 tunes of Richard Wardell. But always, in the 
 midst of prosperity, when she was the mis- 
 tress of a handsome house in the city, she had 
 retained tender memories of her home town 
 with its neighborliness and its rigid ideals. 
 
 Eight years had passed since her husband 
 had died. With her fervent will to do what 
 was best for her children, she had sold the 
 2
 
 A HARD-LUCK DAY 
 
 large house and its attractive, almost sump- 
 tuous, furnishings, and had settled down in 
 a small furnished apartment near the school 
 that Robert and the girls attended. And 
 there they had valiantly made the best of 
 their rather commonplace circumstances. 
 
 At the age of twenty-three Robert had 
 finished his course at Armour Institute and 
 accepted the position of assistant engineer in 
 the building of a dam on Rock River in cen- 
 tral Illinois. Rue, three years younger, had 
 just ended her first year as a teacher of Eng- 
 lish in what her sister derisively called "a 
 young goose's academy." Annie Dee had 
 finished her high-school course and was tak- 
 ing some credit to herself for having done it 
 at the age of seventeen. 
 
 Rue alone of them all had been doubtful 
 about the wisdom of making the change. 
 
 "I Ve given up my position, I know," she 
 had said with a sigh at one of the last family 
 councils, " but I may be very glad to ask for it 
 again next September when, probably, it 
 will be too late to get it back." 
 
 3
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "You'll never ask for it back if I have my 
 way, sister," Annie Dee declared. "I never 
 could endure to see you in that place, wast- 
 ing your time on those smirking, chattering 
 
 creatures." 
 
 "Don't be violent, sis," Rue answered. 
 "Their smirking and chattering did n't hurt 
 me." 
 
 "Yes, it did, my dear. It put you in a 
 wrong light. Mother thinks just as I do. 
 She was ashamed to have you associated 
 with a school that set shallow accomplish- 
 ments above real education." 
 
 Rue's face flushed, but she said nothing. 
 
 "You're not saying anything, Rue," 
 Annie Dee ventured after a minute. 
 
 "What is there to say? If I had been able 
 to take my normal-school course, I might 
 have commanded a position of some con- 
 sequence. As it is " 
 
 "As it is," Robert broke in, "I hogged all 
 
 the education! Well, it can't be helped, Rue. 
 
 My only comfort lies in thinking how much 
 
 brighter you are than I. You'll make up in 
 
 4
 
 A HARD-LUCK DAY 
 
 some way for all that youVe missed; and 
 then, too, maybe you'll not have to teach 
 school many years." 
 
 But whatever their arguments about the 
 benefits and disadvantages of leaving the 
 city had been, they were at last sitting, with 
 bags in hand, ready for the train to slacken 
 at the station of Dalroy. To be sure, it had 
 not been necessary that they should all ac- 
 company Robert, but they had to spend the 
 summer somewhere, and why not with him, 
 since to be together was the chief desire of all 
 of them? Mrs. Wardell hoped to find some 
 little cottage open to sun and air, surrounded 
 by trees, with a garden plat and a pleasant 
 vista. 
 
 "Dalroy looks like the prettiest sort of a 
 place," Annie Dee announced as she caught 
 glimpses of the river through a fine row of 
 Lombardy poplars. "Oh, mother, I know 
 we 're going to love it ! You will, especially, 
 you poor dear, after being shut up in that 
 little flat so long." 
 
 "Come," said Rue. "Here we are." 
 5
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 A few moments later the Wardells were 
 standing before the usual dark-red station 
 and marveling at two lackluster omnibus- 
 drivers, who stood in depressed and depress- 
 ing silence beside their vehicles. The War- 
 dells had been the only passengers to leave 
 the train, but a large, untidy-looking man 
 with a worried expression on his face was 
 boarding it. The Wardells could not have 
 failed to notice him, for he hung from the 
 platform of the train even as it pulled out, 
 and regarded them with a glance that 
 seemed to have in it both anxiety and dis- 
 like. 
 
 "Guess he has something on his mind," 
 commented Robert blithely. "I don't see 
 any signs of a baggageman, do you, Rue ? It 
 does n't seem right to go away and leave our 
 trunks standing out on the platform." 
 
 But the station agent, who heard, had a 
 different opinion. 
 
 "Let 'em stand," he said. "Nobody won't 
 hurt 'em." 
 
 "But where is the baggageman?" 
 6
 
 A HARD-LUCK DAY 
 
 " Gone away for his health," drawled the 
 agent, and winked at an imaginary audi- 
 ence. 
 
 Robert did not understand the point of the 
 joke until, turning to take one more sweep- 
 ing inventory of their trunks and boxes, he 
 saw the agent himself swinging the luggage 
 into the storeroom. 
 
 A tall young man, with his hands in his 
 pockets and his hat on the back of his head, 
 stood leaning against the shady side of the 
 station. To him Robert turned trustingly for 
 advice. 
 
 "Which hotel would you recommend ?" he 
 asked, indicating the waiting omnibuses, on 
 which were lettered the faded legends that 
 they belonged respectively to "The Dalroy 
 House" and "The Sinnissippi Hotel." 
 
 The young man looked out of half-closed 
 lids and dropped the one word, "Neither." 
 
 " Perhaps you know of some boarding- 
 house, then?" 
 
 "There ain't but one and it's for rail- 
 way hands." 
 
 7
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 Robert would have thought the young 
 man amusing if the fellow had not been so 
 evidently ill-natured. 
 
 " I choose the Dalroy House, because I 
 don't know how to pronounce the name of 
 the other one ! " cried Annie Dee gayly. And 
 because that seemed as good a reason as any, 
 they were soon rattling up the street behind 
 the bored-looking horses. 
 
 The streets would have been more pleasant, 
 perhaps, if they had not been so broad. 
 They might have been designed for a world 
 capital so imposing was their width ; but 
 stores, of moderate size and of not very at- 
 tractive appearance, lined the way, with 
 many gaps for future buildings. The Dal- 
 roy House, however, had an engaging vil- 
 lage look, as if it had known many experi- 
 ences to which its neighbors were strangers. 
 
 " What a nice human expression it has ! " 
 said Annie Dee admiringly. " I like the old 
 paint and the sagging shutters. See, there 
 are trees in the side yard ! Do you think we 
 might eat under them ? " 
 
 8
 
 A HARD-LUCK DAY 
 
 " Why, there 's Mr. Harmon's office oppo- 
 site!" cried Robert with some excitement. 
 
 John Harmon was his employer, whom he 
 had not yet seen, and his mother and sisters 
 stared at the little one-story office building 
 with something like awe. The employer of 
 Robert was bound to seem important to them. 
 
 With the feeling that they were on an 
 adventure, the Wardells mounted the steps 
 to the wide veranda and passed into the hotel 
 office. They had arrived, and they felt ex- 
 hilarated over the event. They were even 
 willing to have others exhilarated; but the 
 group of elderly men smoking their pipes in 
 gloomy sociability seemed to care nothing 
 about them. Even the clerk was calm 
 almost insultingly so. He had rooms, yes. 
 Good rooms? Good enough, he guessed. A 
 bath ? No room with a bath only general 
 baths. The price ? It was not modest. 
 
 : 'We shall be with you until we find a 
 house," said Mrs. Wardell in that neigh- 
 borly voice that long residence in the city 
 had not been able to take from her. " Per- 
 9
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 haps you will kindly tell us something about 
 the vacant houses in town. Could we find a 
 furnished one, do you think ? " 
 
 " There are no vacant houses in town," 
 said the clerk indifferently. 
 
 " None at all ? " persisted Mrs. Wardell. 
 " Not some little place that would do for the 
 summer? " 
 
 " Nothing at all, I believe," the clerk re- 
 plied in a tone that seemed to say it was 
 time to end the conversation. 
 
 The group in the corner had the air of 
 thinking the same thing and thinking it 
 harder. There was an atmosphere of dis- 
 couraging chill. 
 
 Annie Dee giggled. "They don't need 
 electric fans here," she whispered to her 
 sister. 
 
 The entrance of a young woman saved 
 the situation. She was a tall girl with dark 
 eyes and a well-tanned skin. Her plain frock 
 of white linen, her immaculate white canvas 
 shoes, and her jaunty, untrimmed hat of 
 green felt gave her an air of distinction. 
 10
 
 A HARD-LUCK DAY 
 
 She was businesslike, but she had the man- 
 ner of being so temporarily. She bowed to 
 the clerk and won a smile from him. Then 
 she approached the old cronies. 
 
 " Father is n't here ? " she asked in a tone 
 that had more carrying power than she 
 seemed to realize. 
 
 The Wardells had started to get their 
 bags together, but they lingered, fascinated. 
 How did it happen that this fine girl was 
 addressing those seedy, idle gossips in the 
 tone of a comrade? The men were appre- 
 ciative of her favors, it seemed. They re- 
 moved their pipes, and one of them actually 
 got to his feet. 
 
 " Cap ain't been here all afternoon, Miss 
 Pat," he said. " Was n't there some talk of 
 his taking a party down the river ? Did you 
 happen to notice whether the Raven was at 
 the dock?" 
 
 " No, I did n't come round by the cabin," 
 the girl said. 
 
 She hesitated a moment, and her eye 
 searched the room. It seemed to the Wardells 
 ii
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 that she was not accepting the word of her 
 father's friends unquestioningly. 
 
 " It 's quite important that I should see 
 him. If he comes in, perhaps you '11 be kind 
 enough to tell him." 
 
 She smiled at the men rather pleadingly, 
 and they responded with a chorus of assur- 
 ances that they would deliver her message. 
 Her glance, which had on her entrance passed 
 to the Wardells and swept on, now returned 
 to them with an alert, friendly look. 
 
 She was nearly at the door, when Rue 
 suddenly contrived to make an opening for 
 acquaintanceship. 
 
 " Oh, may we see you a moment ? " she 
 said, walking toward her. " Just one little 
 moment in the parlor?" She turned to 
 the clerk. "There is a parlor? " 
 
 There was ; the clerk pointed to it, and the 
 Wardells trooped into it with the girl. 
 
 " It 's about a house," Rue began. " We 
 are strangers, as you see, and we 're hoping 
 to spend the summer here because my brother 
 has work in the town. The clerk has quite 
 
 12
 
 A HARD-LUCK DAY 
 
 dismayed us by telling us that there are no 
 vacant houses to be had. Can that be so? " 
 
 The girl thought a moment, while she 
 looked from one to the other with friendly 
 eyes; but as she reflected, she sobered. 
 
 "Oh," she said at last regretfully, "I 
 don't believe there 's one not a single one ! " 
 
 " How extraordinary ! " said Mrs. Wardell. 
 " Is this such a rapidly growing town ? " 
 
 " No, it couldn't be called that," the girl 
 admitted. " On the contrary, it 's a town 
 where little building has been done for 
 years." 
 
 " I 'm afraid we 're in a predicament," 
 said Mrs. Wardell. 
 
 "Yes," murmured the girl sympatheti- 
 cally. Then she laughed. " There are a num- 
 ber of persons in town who would be very 
 glad to get away," she said. "The only thing 
 I can suggest is that you let them know you 
 want to move in. Perhaps that will give them 
 the impulse to go." 
 
 " Why do they want to go? " demanded 
 Annie Dee. 
 
 13
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 " I don't suppose they all have the same 
 reason," she said. " But a little town is 
 something like a story often told you may 
 get tired of it." 
 
 " I 'm afraid we have been very unbusi- 
 nesslike in coming here without making 
 proper inquiries," said Mrs. Wardell. <!< We 
 're so used to living where we can get any- 
 thing we have the money to pay for that 
 we 're spoiled. It never occurred to us that 
 we could n't find a house." 
 
 "I see," said the girl. "Well, when I 
 want anything terribly it usually comes to 
 me. I hope you '11 have the same luck. If I 
 can do anything at all for you, call me up by 
 telephone Patricia Quincannon, 29 Blue. 
 And if I hear of anything, shall I communi- 
 cate with you here ? " 
 
 " Would you? " cried Robert. " You are 
 very kind indeed. Wardell is our name. This 
 is my mother, Miss Quincannon; these are 
 my sisters." That would have seemed suffi- 
 cient, but he added with an air of awkward 
 isolation, " I am Robert Wardell." 
 14
 
 A HARD-LUCK DAY 
 
 A gleam of something like mischief shone 
 in the girl's eyes, but before Robert could 
 decide what it meant she had made her bows 
 and farewells and was gone. 
 
 There was nothing left now for the War- 
 dells to do except to go to their rooms, which, 
 as Annie Dee said, was a stupid proceeding 
 when they were all keyed up for something 
 stirring. The rooms proved to be pleasant 
 enough, but they suggested appalling in- 
 activity. 
 
 " Run over and call on Mr. Harmon, 
 Robert," said Mrs. Wardell. "He ought to 
 know that you Ve come." 
 
 Robert was gone a long time ; long enough 
 for the girls and Mrs. Wardell to have their 
 trunks brought to their rooms and for them 
 to unpack their handbags. Annie Dee was 
 walking round and round, trying, she said, 
 to distribute her vibrations and make the 
 place seem homelike, when Robert came back. 
 His face was white and his manner disturbed. 
 
 "What is it?" the three demanded at 
 once. " What 's wrong ? "
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 " Everything ! Mr. Harmon was horrified 
 when he heard that I had brought you all 
 with me. He had no idea of my doing such a 
 thing. He said Dalroy was a wretched hole 
 as far as accommodations went, and that 
 anyway " He paused. 
 
 " Anyway," they all prompted. 
 
 " He is n't sure that the dam 's going to 
 be built." 
 
 "Why not? " demanded Mrs. Wardell in 
 the very quiet voice that she used when 
 excited. 
 
 " Oh, it seems that there is opposition on 
 every hand! The people don't want a fac- 
 tory here particularly a furniture factory. 
 A number of the leading citizens are stock- 
 holders in a furniture factory in a town 
 twenty miles down the river, and they don't 
 want competition. But that is n't all. The 
 dam will flood fifty acres of low, sedgy land 
 on the farther bank of the river. That land 
 has never been considered of the slightest 
 value, and Mr. Harmon supposed he should 
 have no trouble in buying it, at a moderate 
 16
 
 A HARD-LUCK DAY 
 
 figure, of course. But now the old duffer who 
 owns it declares that he was about to drain 
 it and raise corn on it, and is offering figures 
 to show how much corn per acre can be raised 
 on precisely that kind of land. He refuses 
 to sell it at a reasonable figure and has served 
 an injunction to prevent Mr. Harmon from 
 building the dam. The whole scheme 's tied 
 up. Meanwhile no work and no salary 
 for Bobbie Wardell." 
 
 "No salary? But you are here you'll 
 give them your time. It is n't your fault 
 that" 
 
 "And you refused that other position." 
 
 "And now it 's too late to take that back ! " 
 
 "No job and no home," said Rue nerv- 
 ously. 
 
 "We have no more sense," announced 
 Annie Dee feelingly, "than rabbits." 
 
 "Not so much," said her brother. 
 
 For five minutes they gloomily sat in si- 
 lence, thinking of what they might have done 
 and of what they might have left undone. 
 It was not a cheerful moment, although it
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 was a vivid one, and they were often to re- 
 member it in years to come. 
 
 It was Annie Dee who first reentered the 
 ranks of the courageous. " Come," she said, 
 "let's have lemonade served in the garden. 
 It will be cooling for the brain." 
 
 It was a pleasing thought, and they im- 
 mediately descended to the office. 
 
 "May we have some lemonade?" asked 
 Annie Dee with what cheerfulness she could 
 summon. "And we'd like it served in the 
 garden, please." 
 
 The gossips by the window turned to stare. 
 The clerk removed his pen from behind his 
 ear and replaced it again. 
 
 "We serve nothing here except at meal- 
 times. And we never serve anything except 
 in the dining-room or, in case of sickness, in 
 private rooms." 
 
 "I wish," Annie Dee replied, fixing the 
 clerk with a steady gaze, " that I were run- 
 ning this hotel. I'd try to make my guests 
 have a pleasant time." 
 
 "Annie Dee!" said her mother in reproof. 
 18
 
 A HARD-LUCK DAY 
 
 But the girl paid no attention. She swept 
 out to the street and the others aimlessly 
 followed her. 
 
 "Oh, it's blistering hot out here!" said 
 Rue. "Where are you going, Annie Dee? 
 We can't roam round in this heat. Why not 
 go back to our rooms? There does n't seem 
 to be any other place to go." 
 
 When she remembered that even that com- 
 monplace refuge was an extravagance that 
 they could ill afford, she could hardly keep 
 back her tears. Worn out with her year of 
 teaching, Rue was not in such good righting 
 trim as her sister. 
 
 "Go back to our rooms?" Annie Dee 
 cried, not caring in the least that her defi- 
 ant young voice was being wafted back to 
 the ears of that wooden hotel clerk and the 
 group of smoking cronies. " Not a bit of it ! 
 We '11 go and find a house where we can make 
 our own lemonade." 
 
 "What is the use in finding a house if 
 there 's no work for Bob ? " asked Rue brok- 
 enly. 
 
 19
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "There'll be work," Annie Dee declared. 
 "You would n't want him to run away 
 because there are difficulties, would you? 
 There are always difficulties in business." 
 
 " I had no thought of running away," said 
 Robert quietly. "Mr. Harmon would think 
 very poorly of me if I did. I Ve merely got 
 to share his hard luck." 
 
 Mrs. Wardell's lips were drawn in a 
 straight line and her eyes had what Annie 
 Dee called their "turned-in look." 
 
 "Let's go on," she said, looking down the 
 street, where the heat rose in visible waves. 
 "We may as well see what is to be seen."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HOW THE LUCK TURNED 
 
 ROBERT'S employer, Mr. Harmon, called 
 in the evening to pay his respects to Mrs. 
 Wardell, and in the dim hotel parlor the 
 question uppermost in the minds of all of 
 them was discussed. 
 
 "I'll admit," said Mr. Harmon, who was 
 much younger than the girls had expected 
 him to be, "that when I sent for your son I 
 thought him foot-loose, as a young man just 
 out of college usually is. Had I known that 
 it was otherwise with him, I should have 
 wired to him at once when the injunction 
 was served and told him not to come. I 
 let him come, even when things were so dis- 
 couraging, because I thought I might be 
 able to use him in little ways and that he 
 might be content for a time upon part of the 
 salary that I originally promised him." 
 
 "I see your position perfectly, and you are 
 
 21
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 to feel no responsibility whatever concerning 
 us," Mrs. Wardell responded, so pleasantly 
 that only her children could guess how much 
 pride the remark covered. "We have to 
 spend the summer somewhere, and naturally 
 we prefer to spend it with Robert if pos- 
 sible/' 
 
 "As matters stand," said Mr. Harmon, 
 " I find myself completely tied up, and even 
 those small details with which I had hoped 
 to occupy him temporarily must be set aside 
 for a time. You see, Dalroy is one of those 
 mean little towns where every one seems to 
 enjoy setting a spoke in the wheel of every 
 one else, though of course there are some fine 
 people here. Just at present the whole town 
 is torn up over a school quarrel. The school 
 principal here is a regular back number who 
 refuses to get out till he 's thrown out. One 
 of the teachers, an up-and-coming young 
 woman, put the trustees up to sending for a 
 woman of radical methods to come here and 
 be looked over. She's expected any day, and 
 meanwhile the town talks of little else, and 
 22
 
 HOW THE LUCK TURNED 
 
 poor old Rysdael, the present incumbent, 
 has left in a huff." 
 
 "A man with a large head and no creases 
 in his trousers?" asked Annie Dee explo- 
 sively. 
 
 " Just ! You Ve seen him ? " 
 
 "He got on the train as we got off, and 
 glared at us. Probably he thought mother 
 was his rival." 
 
 "Very likely. The poor man has taught 
 school here for the last twenty-eight years 
 and has had little enough pay for it. He had 
 an invalid wife into the bargain; but she's 
 gone now, and his daughter keeps house for 
 him. Naturally, they feel very bitter, and no 
 one can help sympathizing with them. But 
 of course the greatest good of the greatest 
 number is what has to be considered. I'm 
 always on the side of progress." 
 
 "Naturally," murmured the Wardells. 
 
 "Now, here I am being held back by a lot 
 of barnacles. The man who served that in- 
 junction on me is a lazy old crank who has 
 held the property half a lifetime and has 
 23
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 never done a thing with it. He lives in a sort 
 of house-boat affair down on the river and 
 runs a little steam yacht for excursionists. 
 Now, he does n't want the land that he's 
 making all this trouble about; yet he won't 
 sell it at a reasonable price. He's tickled to 
 death to be spiking my guns. However, I '11 
 get that injunction set aside just as sure as 
 the sun rises. When I '11 be able to do it is, of 
 course, another question." 
 
 When Mr. Harmon was leaving, after an 
 evening in which the Wardells showed their 
 talents as listeners, he invited them to go 
 driving with him the next afternoon. He 
 wished to show them the country, he said, 
 for by and by, when the work began, there 
 would be no time for pleasure jaunts. 
 
 The next morning found the Wardells, for 
 no reason that they could have given, early 
 at the breakfast table. Rue, whose nerves 
 had been shaken by a prolonged succession 
 of entertainments at the closing of the Ingle- 
 dew Academy, "fluffy" entertainments, 
 as Annie Dee described them, was re- 
 24
 
 stored by her night's rest ; the fact that there 
 were very real difficulties to face stimulated 
 her. She was much more like her mother 
 than Annie Dee was ; she had the same placid 
 brow, the same gentle eyes, the same soft 
 brown hair. Annie Dee was keener, more 
 impulsive, more likely to pay for to-day's 
 adventure with to-morrow's regret. 
 
 "Somewhere in this town," Rue an- 
 nounced at breakfast, "is a house where the 
 Wardells are going to live, and I'm going 
 out to find it." 
 
 "I'm with you!" Annie Dee cried. "Will 
 you come, mother?" 
 
 But Mrs. Wardell was tired and decided 
 to stay quietly on the shady porch. As for 
 Robert, he mysteriously disappeared, and 
 the two sisters, fresh-gowned, rejoicing in 
 the comparative coolness of the midsummer 
 morning, set forth. 
 
 Keeping carefully on the shady side of 
 the street, they walked up and down and 
 took stock of Dalroy's residences. Very 
 pleasant some of them were, flanked by
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 porches and set amid lawns. Some were 
 lowly and inviting, others bore the unmis- 
 takable stamp of aristocracy; but all, hum- 
 ble and grand, had the appearance of being 
 occupied by the persons who had built them 
 and who had every intention of passing them 
 on to their descendants. 
 
 "Let's look for barns," said Rue. "I've 
 heard of charming houses being made out of 
 barns. If we can find a picturesque one that 
 is n't being used, maybe they'll let us have 
 
 it.' 3 
 
 It sounded like a pathetic last resort, but 
 the girls were not feeling pathetic ; they were 
 in far too aggressive a mood for that. In 
 order to look for barns they turned into a 
 street, if street it could be called, that seemed 
 to have been neglected and left unimproved. 
 Trees and shrubs grew beside the road, and 
 flower beds, neglected but still beautiful, re- 
 tained their shape amid the wild growth of 
 weeds and grass. Evidently the street had 
 been cut through the heart of some fine old 
 farm. Almost forgetting their quest in the 
 26
 
 HOW THE LUCK TURNED 
 
 enjoyment of this pleasant path, they wan- 
 dered on with strangely light hearts. 
 
 And then, most unexpectedly, they came 
 upon the house. They knew it for the house 
 as soon as their eyes fell upon it. The little 
 Gothic cottage, indescribably suggestive of 
 modesty and decorum, of sweetness and 
 placidity, seemed to be waiting just for them. 
 The pale-green paneled shutters kept the 
 inquisitive from seeing within the narrow 
 windows; the moss-grown roof sloped to a 
 charming porch, and at each end of the little 
 neglected house rose a chimney of mellow 
 old red brick. 
 
 "Annie Dee!" gasped Rue, clutching her 
 sister's arm. "There it is! We've found it." 
 
 A nearer view of the house brought no fur- 
 ther knowledge of it. The weeds had had 
 their way for years in a rich soil and had 
 succeeded in hiding every trace of a path; 
 and nothing could have been more secretive 
 than those solid shutters. Altogether it 
 looked a place of gentle mystery. 
 
 "And there's another house," said Rue. 
 27
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 " Some one is living in it, I think. Do you see 
 it, back there among the trees?" 
 
 This second house was a weathered, home- 
 like place of moderate size, standing in a 
 grove of fine trees. As the girls passed 
 through the high gateway and walked up the 
 winding path, squirrels scolded them from 
 the great elms and martins fluttered about 
 the groups of bird houses. No one answered 
 their knock at the front door, and they ven- 
 tured to the side of the house, whence came 
 the pleasant sound of a carpenter's plane. 
 The door of a little workroom stood open, 
 and Rue, looking in, saw, not the masculine 
 artisan she had expected to find, but a young 
 woman with a sad, somewhat bitter face, 
 occupied in smoothing the edge of a plank 
 which was clamped in a vise. She stopped, 
 startled by the presence of her visitors, and 
 looked at them with mingled shyness and an- 
 noyance. 
 
 "Please excuse us," said Rue. "But we've 
 come to ask about the house next door. 
 Could you tell us who owns it?" 
 28
 
 HOW THE LUCK TURNED 
 
 The woman wiped her brow with an em- 
 barrassed gesture and came out into the 
 open. 
 
 " I can tell you the names of the owners," 
 she said primly, "but not their address. That 
 house belonged to Miss Amrah Curtis, and 
 she lived in it for forty years. When she died 
 she willed it to her nephews, the only kin she 
 had. They were here at the funeral, but they 
 have n't been back since." 
 
 "It doesn't look so very ruinous," said 
 Rue. "Only neglected." 
 
 "Where do those nephews live, please?" 
 Annie Dee inquired. 
 
 " In Chicago. They Ve gone into college 
 or business, I don't know which or where." 
 
 "Do you know their names?" 
 
 "Certainly. I've known them since they 
 were babies. They are Gordon and Wylie 
 Curtis." 
 
 "I do wish we had the key!" sighed Rue, 
 
 still gazing at the house. Then something in 
 
 the silence of the carpenter woman made her 
 
 ask, "You have n't the key by any chance?" 
 
 29
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "I have the key," the other admitted, 
 flushing, "but I don't care to take any re- 
 sponsibility about showing the house. Three 
 times when I thought I had tenants the boys 
 refused to rent it." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "They wanted a description of the people, 
 and I gave it to the best of my ability. In 
 each case they said they were afraid people 
 like that would n't understand the place. 
 You see, everything is just as their aunt left 
 it, and they want it kept that way." 
 
 "I'm sure," declared Rue, "that we are 
 the very people for the house. Miss Curtis 
 must have been very nice or her nephews 
 would n't feel that way about her. If you 
 described us in your most complimentary 
 manner, do you think we 'd be accepted, Miss 
 pardon me, I don't know your name." 
 
 "Miss Rysdael." 
 
 "We'd better write a description of our- 
 selves," said Annie Dee, with a laugh. "We 
 're so much nicer than we look." 
 
 "Oh, perhaps you are the daughter of that 
 30
 
 HOW THE LUCK TURNED 
 
 Mr. Rysdael who is principal of the Dalroy 
 school?" asked Rue with sudden recollection. 
 
 "Yes," said the other, stiffening, "I am." 
 
 Rue paid no attention to this frigidity. 
 "I'm a school-teacher myself," she said, 
 "but I've just given up my position." 
 
 "Indeed," said Miss Rysdael coldly. 
 
 For a minute Rue felt angry at the girl's 
 irritating way; then, when she remembered 
 what John Harmon had said of her, that 
 she had passed her youth in caring for an in- 
 valid mother and that now she had to share 
 the misfortunes of a querulous father, a 
 wave of compassion for her swept over Rue 
 Wardell. 
 
 "We want the house very much," she said 
 with a smile. "We are homeless, yet we must 
 stay here. I think we '11 try to get word to the 
 Curtis nephews, and if they give us permis- 
 sion we'll come again for the key." 
 
 "If those boys are in Chicago, we'll find 
 them," Rue declared to Annie Dee, as the two 
 walked back along the lane. "Will mother 
 want to see the house before we do anything? "
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 Mrs. Wardell, when they had told their 
 story, cheerfully relinquished any responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 "Make the finding of a home your achieve- 
 ment," she said. "I Ve had the pleasure and 
 the worry of making decisions for us all for 
 eight long years now. If you are ready to do 
 some of the experimenting, I'm willing to 
 let you." 
 
 They hurried to the telegraph office and 
 sent the following message to a friend: 
 
 Please consult directory and find address 
 Gordon and Wylie Curtis. 
 
 In an hour the answer was in their hands : 
 
 Curtis Brothers, automobile supplies, No. - 
 Michigan Avenue. 
 
 Forthwith the girls telegraphed to that 
 address : 
 
 Would like to rent your cottage. Wire per- 
 mission for key. 
 
 RUE AND ANNIE DEE WARDELL. 
 
 "Would n't it have been better if you had 
 signed your brother's name?" Mrs. Wardell 
 asked them later. 
 
 32
 
 HOW THE LUCK TURNED 
 
 "Oh, mother," said Annie Dee reproach- 
 fully, "you said we could do it all by our- 
 selves!" 
 
 "Do be wise, then, Annie Dee," Mrs. 
 Ward ell pleaded. "You are so so adven- 
 turous." 
 
 Early in the afternoon they received a 
 reply from the Curtises; it was distinctly 
 noncommittal : 
 
 Did not know cottage was habitable. Will 
 consider proposition, but would like to know 
 something about you. 
 
 "Now, what are we to do?" demanded 
 Rue. "Of course we can give them refer- 
 ences, but, after all, how will they know that 
 we're the very persons to respect a place 
 sacred to the memory of Aunt Amrah!" 
 
 "Oh, Rue, I have it!" Annie Dee declared. 
 "Let's send them that family group we had 
 taken on mother's last birthday. Her face 
 would win any one over." 
 
 The photograph went, and with it this 
 letter: 
 
 You will find herewith the names and ad- 
 33
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 dresses of a number of friends who will answer 
 any questions you choose to ask concerning us. 
 You see, it is this way: we must have a house, 
 and yours is the only vacant one in town. We 
 understand that you wish your aunt's belong- 
 ings to be treated with respect. We have not 
 seen them, but the probabilities are that we 
 shall go further and treat them with affection. 
 If the inside of the house is half as quaint and 
 appealing as the outside, we shall value it in- 
 deed. If we make your cottage rentable for 
 future tenants, will you give us the place rent 
 free for a year? 
 
 When they got back to the hotel, after 
 mailing the letter and the photograph, they 
 found their brother, hot and dusty, but well 
 pleased. He quickly showed them that in the 
 matter of enterprise they had not got ahead 
 of him. 
 
 "When I realized that Mr. Harmon 
 would n't need me for a month at least," he 
 said, "I made up my mind that I 'd find some 
 profitable way of putting in my time; so I 
 went hunting for a temporary job. People 
 were pretty unresponsive at first wanted 
 to talk about the dam. I told them I had n't 
 34
 
 HOW THE LUCK TURNED 
 
 come to talk about that. I wanted some 
 bookkeeping or auditing to do ; I said that I 
 was willing to take inventory of stock or that 
 I'd act as clerk. I made it plain that I was 
 an engineer, but that I did n't propose to sit 
 around and think about it. Well, I landed 
 something fairly good." 
 
 "Oh, tell us, Bob!" cried his sisters. 
 
 "It's getting the production cost for a 
 cottage-organ factory that started up about 
 six months ago. The man 's making and sell- 
 ing some very good little instruments, but he 
 is n't sure of his manufacturing cost. I told 
 him that was just the sort of puzzle that 
 appealed to me; so to-morrow I start at 
 it." 
 
 "How nice!" Annie Dee exclaimed. "And 
 we're going to get a home for you." 
 
 At that the two girls excitedly began to 
 tell him about the house. 
 
 When John Harmon's fine car purred up 
 to the veranda, the four Wardells awaited 
 him. 
 
 "I want to show you some of the prettiest 
 35
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 roads in the whole country," he said, as 
 he turned his machine riverward. "In my 
 opinion, this is going to be a stirring town 
 some time. The site is excellent. All that is 
 needed is enterprise. A few old mossbacks 
 have been running the place; that old man 
 who served the injunction on me and put 
 my work back weeks perhaps months is 
 a case in point. I want you to see where he 
 lives and then you can form an idea of his 
 character." 
 
 He turned the machine as he spoke, and 
 they swept along the river-bank beneath 
 beautiful overhanging trees. 
 
 "There's his house now! Did you ever 
 see the like of that?" 
 
 The Wardells never had seen the like of it, 
 but they had to admit to themselves that 
 they thought it rather attractive. 
 
 It was a stanch little habitation shaped 
 like the cabin of a boat, standing on strong 
 cedar piers at least twelve feet above the sur- 
 face of the water and well out from shore. 
 Six small windows on each side of the cabin 
 36
 
 HOW THE LUCK TURNED 
 
 commanded the views of the river, and from 
 the bow waved the American flag, and under 
 it a pennant bearing a black raven on a white 
 ground. A wharf and a flight of steps gave 
 communication with the shore. 
 
 "The place is perfectly fitted up inside/' 
 Mr. Harmon admitted. "There's a cook's 
 galley and a sitting-room and a room with 
 bunks. It's a snug little hole all right, but 
 what does a man mean by living in that sort 
 of place and associating with all the old loaf- 
 ers in town, when he could have a proper 
 home ? Why is n't he taking care of his 
 daughter, who is as fine a girl as any in Dal- 
 roy? I think the man must be a little off in 
 the upper story. Why, he came of a good 
 family and married into a better one, yet he's 
 willing to lead an eccentric, half-vagabond 
 existence ! He 's a fine-looking man, too, but 
 I never see him without noticing that his 
 eyes are a little too near together. That's a 
 bad sign, according to my observation. Stop 
 here a moment, you say ? Yes, immense view, 
 is n't it?" 
 
 37
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 It was, but neither Robert nor his sisters 
 had eyes for it. When the motor had paused 
 at their mother's request, they became aware 
 of the figure of Patricia Quincannon erectly 
 approaching. She did not at first see them, 
 but when she did she bowed in rather re- 
 served recognition. 
 
 " She does n't seem so cordial as she did 
 yesterday," said Annie Dee. 
 
 "I can guess why," said John Harmon. 
 " She 's on her way to visit her father, and she 
 hopes to make you think she's proud to be 
 seen doing it." 
 
 "To visit her father?" repeated Robert 
 vaguely, watching the tall figure of the girl 
 as she swung on down the road. 
 
 "Surely! "cried Mr. Harmon. "See, there 
 she goes ! Old cap 's at home, too." 
 
 "You mean," faltered Robert, "that Miss 
 Quincannon is the daughter of " 
 
 "Of old Captain Quincannon, of course. 
 Whose daughter should she be?" 
 
 None of the Wardells answered. They saw 
 the girl cross the little wharf and climb the 
 38
 
 HOW THE LUCK TURNED 
 
 narrow steps to the boathouse. She still 
 carried her head very high and entered the 
 door as if it had been the portal of an ances- 
 tral mansion.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 "WHAT, didn't you know that?" asked 
 Mr. Harmon. " Pshaw, yes ! Patricia Quin- 
 cannon, the finest girl in the county, is the 
 daughter of the old man who lives in that 
 silly structure on stilts ; but Patricia does n't 
 live with him. Mrs. Thwait, who is at the 
 head of things in Dalroy, treats her like a 
 daughter. She sent her away to school, and 
 the girl fitted herself to be a teacher accord- 
 ing to the most advanced methods. Patri- 
 cia's the one who proposed that Miss Tor- 
 rey be sent for." 
 
 "The woman they're trying to get for 
 principal?" 
 
 "The same. You see, Miss Torrey has a 
 big reputation for a young woman. She'll be 
 coming along in a day or two now, I hear, 
 and then you'll think all the bees in the 
 county are swarming." 
 40
 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 "I simply love to read about girls with 
 strange, disreputable parents," said Annie 
 Dee that evening, when the four of them 
 were again by themselves. "But when it 
 comes to knowing and associating with them, 
 it's different." 
 
 "You have n't been asked yet to associate 
 with Miss Quincannon, Annie Dee," said her 
 brother rather sharply. "And how do we 
 know her father is disreputable ? We have n't 
 laid eyes on him yet ; and naturally Mr. Har- 
 mon is in no mood to put him in a flattering 
 light." 
 
 "No, we won't call her father disreputa- 
 ble," said Mrs. Wardell amiably. "Neither 
 will we lose our heads over the girl because 
 she 's good to look at and has agreeable man- 
 ners. One would be as foolish as the other." 
 
 "Oh, but, mother, there's no mistaking 
 her!" protested Rue. "She's wonderful!" 
 
 "If she's wonderful," Mrs. Wardell con- 
 cluded, "there's an end of argument. Given 
 personality enough, any one can emerge 
 from hard situations."
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 The next morning the girls decided to go 
 for a row on the river. After exploring the 
 bank for a little distance, they pulled into the 
 shade of some overhanging willows. The sun 
 was hot out on the river, and the girls were 
 glad to rest in their little retreat. Rue be- 
 gan to sing softly and Annie Dee joined in ; 
 then, after a time, for no reason that they 
 could have told, they became silent, content 
 to listen to the lisping of the water about the 
 boat. That was how it happened that two 
 persons walking along the path on the bank 
 knew nothing of their presence. 
 
 "How long are you going to hound me, 
 Pat?" a man said gruffly. "Haven't you 
 known me long enough to understand that 
 I '11 do what I please without consulting any 
 one least of all a daughter that's too 
 proud to live with me?" 
 
 "But, dad," pleaded a voice that they 
 easily recognized as Patricia Quincannon's, 
 "what is the use of spoiling Mr. Harmon's 
 plans and keeping many men out of work for 
 the summer? Sooner or later Mr. Harmon's 
 42
 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 going to come out ahead, and holding him 
 back like this seems spiteful. I hear people 
 saying what they think of you, and and it 
 seems as if I could n't stand it." 
 
 " I did n't know you were so sensitive 
 about me, Pat. If you take such an interest 
 in me, why don't you come and live with me 
 and act as a daughter should?" 
 
 "You know very well, dad, that I'd live 
 with you in a minute if it was n't for those 
 friends of yours. How could I stay in the 
 cabin with them coming there and drinking 
 and singing?" 
 
 "Mighty fine you are!" the man snarled. 
 "Well, I don't like your friends any better 
 than you like mine; so you leave me alone 
 and I'll do the same by you no thanks 
 either way." 
 
 The man's steps crunched along the 
 gravelly walk, and he was gone ; but the girl 
 remained. Rue and her sister heard her 
 rustling among the leaves, and then, before 
 they realized it, she was looking into their 
 embarrassed eyes. 
 
 43
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "Oh, we're so sorry!" Rue said, leaning 
 forward. "We could n't go, could we?" 
 
 Patricia Quincannon had tears in her eyes, 
 and quite frankly she wiped them away. 
 
 "No," she said, "you could n't go. It's 
 all right anyway. You'd have found out 
 soon. Now you know what any one in town 
 would have told you five minutes after you 
 began to speak of me." 
 
 "Get into the boat with us, won't you?" 
 said Rue. "There's plenty of room." 
 
 Her gray eyes, quiet and understanding, 
 met the hot and unhappy eyes of the girl on 
 the bank. There was a moment's pause. 
 
 "Yes," Patricia answered at last. "I'll be 
 glad to get in." 
 
 Fora moment they were silent, not know- 
 ing exactly what to say. Then Patricia 
 spoke abruptly, "Have you found a house?" 
 
 They told her of the cottage that they 
 coveted, and she related stories of the much- 
 loved little woman who had long lived in it. 
 Then they talked of other things, and the 
 morning slipped away. When they parted it 
 44
 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 was with a feeling that they had formed a 
 fast friendship. 
 
 The following morning the letter came from 
 Chicago. The Curtis brothers wrote : 
 
 We shall be honored to have you occupy our 
 aunt's cottage on the terms you suggest, and 
 hope you will not be discouraged by the state 
 in which you will find things. We return your 
 picture, as you request. Thank you very much. 
 It was, to say the least, reassuring. If you wish 
 to see portraits of us, you will find them hanging 
 on the south wall of Aunt Amrah's sitting-room. 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 GORDON AND WYLIE CURTIS. 
 
 "What fun!" Annie Dee said. "They took 
 it all just as we wanted them to, did n't 
 they? What a relief to find some one who 
 is n't terribly serious ! Now, mother, you 
 must come and see the house." 
 
 The Wardells certainly were not very seri- 
 ous as they made their way to Miss RysdaeFs 
 cottage, armed with telegram and letter to 
 convince her of their right to the key. 
 "To my mind you need a scythe as much 
 as a key," Miss Rysdael said discouragingly. 
 45
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "I don't see how you're ever going to get 
 through that tangle to the door." 
 
 "Oh, we'll manage very well, thank you !" 
 Rue returned valiantly. "We've old boots 
 and old gloves and are ready for a conflict." 
 
 "You must expect to find mice in the 
 house, and maybe bats," Miss Rysdael con- 
 tinued. " Father said he was n't sure but 
 snakes had got in, too." 
 
 To her surprise the Wardells did not falter. 
 
 "Wish us luck!" cried Annie Dee. And, 
 laughing at her oddly resentful neighbor, she 
 led the attack on the little house. 
 
 Only when they had flung wide every door 
 and shutter did the Wardells pause to see 
 what manner of house Miss Amrah Curtis 
 had left to record her personality. Then, 
 with many exclamations of delight, they 
 went from room to room. True, dust covered 
 everything; but the low, comfortable rooms, 
 the simple furnishings, the friendly fire- 
 places, and the tasteful dishes filled them 
 with joy. 
 
 "That little red rocker must have been 
 46
 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 Miss Amrah's favorite," Rue declared. " See 
 how well placed it is here by the window! 
 That must be your own particular place, 
 mother dear. And oh, Annie Dee, there's 
 that picture of the Curtis boys, as Miss 
 Rysdael calls them!" 
 
 They gathered about the picture, which 
 hung on the south wall. It showed two 
 sturdy small boys six and eight years of 
 age, perhaps in Highland costume. From 
 their place on the wall they smiled shyly at 
 their tenants. 
 
 "What funny little kiddies!" said Rue. 
 "But they're nice, are n't they, mother?" 
 
 "As nice as everything else that belongs to 
 Miss Amrah. I like her house, her nephews, 
 and her atmosphere. I hope she's pleased to 
 have us here." 
 
 Rue and Annie Dee put on the old frocks 
 that they had brought to work in, while Mrs. 
 Wardell went to the village to purchase 
 "ammunition and implements of war," as 
 she said, in the way of brooms, brushes, pails, 
 soap, and cleaning materials. 
 47
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "There are only two bedrooms," observed 
 Rue, " and of course mother must have one 
 and Bobbie the other." 
 
 "And we'll sleep in the trees, I suppose/' 
 said Annie Dee, laughing. 
 
 "No, not quite; but we'll take this little 
 summer kitchen and make the loveliest dress- 
 ing-room out of it you ever saw. Then we'll 
 screen in the little porch that opens off it and 
 put two cots out there. What could be 
 finer?" 
 
 "Nothing," agreed Annie Dee. 
 
 Mrs. Wardell was not one of those persons 
 who think it economical to stretch out a piece 
 of work that can be done quickly. So, leaving 
 the house to her girls and making the yard 
 her particular business, she enlisted that 
 afternoon the services of two men, two 
 horses, a plough, and various other imple- 
 ments. Then, by a happy accident, she ran 
 across one of those men who can turn their 
 hand to all trades. She engaged him to 
 repair the fence and paint it, to paint the 
 house, to replace rusted hinges with new 
 48
 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 ones, to mend the pump, and to see to the 
 drains. 
 
 The next few days flew by like magic, for 
 there is nothing more absorbing to home- 
 lovers than the making of a home. It was 
 delightful to watch the little place emerge 
 from its sorry state. While the "help" that 
 they had hired polished floors and furniture, 
 cleaned walls and windows, beat rugs and 
 mattresses, the girls brightened andirons and 
 candlesticks, washed china and glassware, 
 sewed new curtains and cushion covers, and 
 arranged their own personal possessions in 
 the rooms. At last the renovation was com- 
 plete; two regal hibiscus plants were set to 
 guard the front steps, the yard was seeded, 
 the shrubbery trimmed, the house and fence 
 were painted a quiet gray and the shutters 
 a cool green. 
 
 "Are n't you ready now to meet your 
 neighbors?" said Patricia one day, looking 
 with appreciative eyes at the dainty living- 
 room. "There 's to be a garden party at Mrs. 
 Thwait's for the benefit of the new library 
 49
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 that she started. Every one wants to meet 
 you, of course, and this will be a fine time 
 for it." 
 
 "Well, we're ready to be looked over," 
 the Wardells declared. 
 
 " Confidentially," said Patricia, " this party 
 was my idea, but it would n't do to have peo- 
 ple realize that it was in any sense mine, for 
 I'm out of favor with at least half of my 
 neighbors on account of the part I Ve played 
 in getting a new principal for the school." 
 
 As Patricia had suspected, the Wardells 
 were feeling the need of sociability. So it 
 was with no small sense of anticipation that 
 they made their appearance the night of the 
 party on the lantern-lighted lawn that sur- 
 rounded Mrs. Thwait's gracious old house. 
 
 Mrs. Thwait, to whom Patricia had pre- 
 sented the Wardells, was eager to make them 
 acquainted with her friends, and, as far as 
 her duties as hostess allowed, she did so ; but 
 in the dim light, and with the constraint of 
 newness hanging over them, the Wardells 
 received only vague impressions. A few of 
 So
 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 the people ventured upon words of welcome 
 and spoke of calling on them, but more held 
 out lifeless hands and uttered vague and chilly 
 nothings. 
 
 The Wardells could not fail to observe 
 that there were two camps at Mrs. Thwait's, 
 and that, although all were gathered to- 
 gether for an admirable purpose, the two 
 factions nevertheless drew away from each 
 other. 
 
 "I see," said Patricia, "that you are ob- 
 serving the dark and suspicious glances 
 hurled by one group of our townspeople at 
 the other group, and I think you know the 
 cause of them. By the way, Miss Torrey, the 
 proposed incumbent, will be here to-night. 
 She arrives on the eight-o'clock train, and the 
 president of the School Board is going to 
 bring her here." 
 
 "Is n't that pretty hard on Miss Torrey?" 
 asked Robert, smiling. 
 
 " I Ve thought of that," Patricia admitted ; 
 "but I don't think she '11 realize that she's 
 a storm center not to-night at any rate." 
 Si
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 And apparently Miss Torrey did not real- 
 ize it. She seemed a good-natured, capable 
 woman, and she went her cordial way among 
 the people, taking no notice of the chilly re- 
 ception that some gave her. She had the man- 
 ner of a person who comes with a message of 
 value, and she apparently left it to others 
 to decide whether they would accept it or 
 not. 
 
 As Rue was sitting among the trees with 
 her mother and two other ladies, she noticed 
 a movement in the shrubbery and had a 
 glimpse of a tall, thin, white-clad figure that 
 looked familiar; it was Lena Rysdael. Some- 
 thing about the shadowy form indicated 
 distress a droop, a gesture Rue could 
 not have told what. With a word to her 
 mother, she slipped back into the shadows. 
 
 "Miss Rysdael, is it you?" she called 
 softly. " It's only Miss Wardell. I thought 
 something might be the matter." 
 
 There was a pause, and then a broken 
 voice replied: 
 
 "I'm not feeling well, Miss Wardell. I'd 
 52
 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 like to go home, but I don't want to go out 
 the front gate.'* 
 
 Rue glanced toward the gate, where red 
 Japanese lanterns showed a crowd of young 
 people gathered there. 
 
 "There must be a rear gate, of course," 
 Rue said. " I 'm tired, too, Miss Rysdael. If 
 you will wait a moment, I '11 tell mother and 
 then walk home with you," 
 
 A moment later the two girls had slipped 
 into the road and were alone. It did not need 
 the smothered sob to tell Rue that Lena 
 Rysdael was suffering, but as they walked 
 along she offered no consolation in words. 
 She merely held her companion's arm within 
 her own. 
 
 "My poor father can't stand up against 
 that woman, can he?" said Miss Rysdael, 
 when they had turned into their home lane. 
 "Oh, I kept seeing him, so gruff and untidy 
 beside her! Poor dad, new clothes look as 
 bad as old ones on him, and he won't smile 
 when he is n't amused, to please any one. 
 They judge him by his oddity and forget all 
 53
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 he knows. He's taught in this school for half 
 a long lifetime, and now they're going to 
 throw him out in his old age!" 
 
 They had reached the Rysdael house, and 
 once within it Esau Rysdael's daughter 
 broke down and wept. 
 
 "I ought never to have gone to that 
 place," she sobbed. "But I was lonely, and 
 when I saw you all going in your white frocks, 
 I said I 'd go too. Oh, I wish father had n't 
 gone away! He ought to have stayed right 
 here and fought the thing through. But he 's 
 so nervous, and he does n't sleep well " 
 
 "Don't feel so badly," broke in Rue. 
 "Everything will come out all right." 
 
 "I don't see how you can be so sure," said 
 Miss Rysdael rather sharply. "I don't be- 
 lieve you understand the situation very well, 
 Miss Wardell. It's a case where you've got 
 to come out in the open and say which side 
 you sympathize with. I noticed Miss Quin- 
 cannon at your house the other day " 
 
 "Our first caller," said Rue. "Isn't she 
 lovely?" 
 
 54
 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 "She may be lovely, but it comes to this, 
 that you can't be my friend and hers, too. 
 She, at her age, to be setting herself up to 
 teach my father ! It 's good of you to come 
 home with me, and I thank you ; but I must 
 tell you that I can't compromise with father's 
 enemies, no matter" her voice broke a 
 little "no matter how much I may be in- 
 clined to like them." 
 
 "I like you, Miss Rysdael," said Rue with 
 spirit, "and you can't possibly prevent me. 
 I like Patricia, too, and I'm going to keep 
 right on liking her. This whole dispute is on 
 the merits of systems of education, and I 
 hope the best side will win." 
 
 "And you think the best side is Miss 
 Quincannon's side?" 
 
 Rue did not try to evade the question ; she 
 would be kind, but she must be honest, too. 
 
 " From what I have heard I do think so," 
 she said gently. " But what does that mat- 
 ter?" 
 
 "Nothing could matter more," declared 
 Lena Rysdael, rising. "I want you to go, 
 55
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 Miss Wardell. I don't like to be rude, but 
 you'll have to understand what this means 
 to us. If father loses in this fight, there are 
 hundreds of people who will be glad of it to 
 the end of their days. No, don't say another 
 word. I want to live by myself, and I don't 
 want you intruding with a lot of silly cheer- 
 fulness that can't mean a thing to me not 
 a thing!" Then she gently pushed Rue from 
 the house.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MYSTERIES 
 
 AT the close of the fifth week of the War- 
 dells' stay in Dalroy, the court set aside the 
 injunction against the building of the Har- 
 mon dam. John Harmon was at once gal- 
 vanized into intense life; not content with 
 putting up his dam, he resolved to build his 
 furniture factory at the same time. Before 
 the little town, drowsing in its midsummer 
 heat, realized what he proposed to do, a 
 hundred workmen were on the scene. 
 
 Robert, who had for four consecutive sum- 
 mers worked on reinforced concrete in one 
 form or another, felt able to cope with the 
 construction of the dam, but the chief re- 
 sponsibility of the undertaking was not his. 
 Mr. Arthur Vaille, who had employed Robert 
 during his vacations and who had recom- 
 mended him to Mr. Harmon, was to come 
 down from Chicago three times a week to 
 oversee the work. 
 
 57
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 The conversation at the Wardells' cottage 
 turned chiefly on such subjects as winter 
 contraction of concrete, the rapidity of the 
 flow of the Rock River, the length of the sea- 
 son, and, by way of a diversion, the con- 
 tinued animosity of Captain Quincannon. 
 
 "He's drinking heavily/' Harmon told the 
 Wardells as they sat at Sunday-night sup- 
 per together, "and he and his cronies are 
 putting their heads together a great deal 
 nowadays. Miss Quincannon has been doing 
 her best to get her father to take a vaca- 
 tion. That's the way she is pleased to put it. 
 She's been telling him that he ought to visit 
 his brother out in Washington, and she's 
 offered to pay his way if he '11 go ; but the 
 captain is as hot as a hornet over the deci- 
 sion of the court, and he intends to stay right 
 here and make things disagreeable for me." 
 
 "That explains why Patricia gave up go- 
 ing to Cedar Lake," said Rue. "She could 
 n't afford to go and send her father West, 
 too." 
 
 "I hear Miss Quincannon has carried her 
 58
 
 MYSTERIES 
 
 point with the Board of Education," Har- 
 mon remarked. "They met last evening and 
 decided to put Miss Torrey in Rysdael's 
 place." 
 
 "Mr. Rysdael is home," Robert remarked. 
 "I saw him sitting in his yard this morning 
 playing with the squirrels. What a strange- 
 looking man he is, with his huge, hang-dog 
 head and his tumbled hair! He looks like a 
 genius or at least the way a genius is sup- 
 posed to look." 
 
 "There's Miss Rysdael walking up and 
 down among the trees," said Mr. Harmon 
 peering through the window with interest. 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Wardell, "she walks like 
 that at twilight every day. We admire her 
 very much, though she does n't even look 
 our way since she found out how we stand 
 on the school question ; but we love to watch 
 her feeding her birds and squirrels." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Harmon!" broke in Annie Dee. 
 "Did you know I was going into the poetry 
 business?" 
 
 "I did n't know it, Miss Annie." 
 59
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "Next week I begin to advertise." 
 "How? Where? Do poets advertise?" 
 "Lord Byron never did and Tennyson 
 seldom, but they had certain advantages 
 over me other ways of making themselves 
 known. As for me, I shall become celebrated 
 by advertising. You see, I mean to write 
 what are called * occasional poems/ Suppose 
 your grandmother is about to have her 
 seventy-fifth birthday and that none of the 
 family is poetical. Then apply to me! I will 
 write a poem for grandmother that will melt 
 her heart. Or suppose that you are going 
 to celebrate your golden wedding and want 
 verses about it. Or imagine that you are 
 asked to welcome a distinguished English 
 poet and are expected to do so in rhyme " 
 "You ask too much," said the Wardells' 
 guest. "I can't imagine such a thing's hap- 
 pening to me." 
 
 "Then, to bring my talents within the 
 realm of your needs, Mr. Harmon, suppose 
 you made a nice little rocker in your fac- 
 tory and wished to advertise it in an unus- 
 60
 
 MYSTERIES 
 
 ual manner. Then I could write you verses 
 about Priscilla Alden and her sewing-chair 
 do you see ? " 
 
 "Now that you have, as you insinuate, at 
 last brought your ideas down to my level, I 
 certainly see. What is more, and I'm quite 
 in earnest in saying it, I engage you to write 
 some of those advertisements/' 
 
 "My first job!" cried Annie Dee. 
 
 "Have you no chosen career, Miss War- 
 dell?" John Harmon asked of Rue. 
 
 "I Ve had just a touch too much career," 
 Rue said, laughing. "I'm still lazy and 
 fussy from an overdose of school-teaching. If 
 it had been the real thing I probably should 
 n't have been worn out ; but fooling away my 
 time with a company of over-indulged girls, 
 who did n't wish to learn, got on my nerves. 
 I'm corresponding with a teachers' bureau 
 now in the hope of getting a position with 
 a real school. Meanwhile I 'm keeping up a 
 University Extension Course in pedagogy 
 and helping mother put up preserves." 
 
 "Two crates of strawberries, the last of the 
 61
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 season, are coming early to-morrow morn- 
 ing," announced Mrs. Wardell. " Everything 
 will have to give way before them, too, po- 
 etry, pedagogy, perhaps even engineerng." 
 
 " I used to pick over berries for my mother 
 once upon a time," John Harmon said. " She 
 and I lived together in this little town for 
 years ; then she sent me away to get my edu- 
 cation, and she lived here alone. It was only 
 after she had gone and I read the record she 
 left of those lonely years that I understood 
 what she had been through. I believe it was 
 partly for her sake though I could n't ex- 
 plain what I mean that made me decide 
 to open up my business here. I had a notion 
 she'd like me to come to Dalroy, though 
 personally I regard it as a mean little town." 
 
 "Mean and not mean, low and fine, bore- 
 some and delightful, like all other places in- 
 habited by human beings," said Mrs. War- 
 dell, as they rose from the table. 
 
 The following morning was known there- 
 after in the annals of the Wardell family as 
 "The Morning of the Hidden Hand." 
 62
 
 MYSTERIES 
 
 The occasion was an incident that had to 
 do with the strawberry preserves and was as 
 follows : 
 
 Part of the preserves were in the kettle 
 over the fire, when Patricia Quincannon 
 called. 
 
 "I shan't stay," she said, when she saw 
 how actively engaged the family were. "I 
 merely yielded to an impulse to run over and 
 see you. No, there 's no use in urging me, 
 
 I 'm off. News ? Oh, there is n't much 
 news ! The Board has accepted Miss Torrey 
 
 you heard that? She's to live at Mrs. 
 Thwait's, and that makes me quite happy. 
 I'm a restless creature, and it will do me 
 good to have some one as stimulating as Miss 
 Torrey round. I saw poor Lena Rysdael over 
 the fence just now, and she dropped her eyes 
 as if I were the elephant-faced man. Who's 
 he ? Oh, he used to live in town ! Poor dear, 
 he wore a mask till the day of his death. 
 That 's one of Dalroy's stories. Some day I 
 shall relate to you the Thousand and One 
 Dalroy Nights. They're much more inter- 
 
 63
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 esting than the Arabian ones. Queer things 
 have happened here. Well, I must be going. 
 Good-bye I '11 be over again soon." 
 
 " But I Ve ever so many things I want to 
 tell you right now," Rue protested ; and she 
 followed her guest down the lane. Of course 
 Annie Dee tagged along, too. 
 
 Just about that time a man came to the 
 door with an ice-cream freezer, in which he 
 wished to interest the lady of the house. He 
 came, moreover, to the front door, and it was 
 there that Mrs. Wardell talked with him. 
 She did not buy the freezer, but she saw an 
 acquaintance who had been ill driving by, 
 and she ran out to inquire after her health. 
 
 That was how the strawberry jam hap- 
 pened to burn. The wind, however, was not 
 in the right direction to convey the dire 
 news of the culinary tragedy to Mrs. Wardell, 
 who stood in amiable conversation with her 
 friend. The wind was southwest by west, and 
 so the birds and squirrels in the Rysdael 
 grove were presumably the only creatures 
 aware of the fact that several dollars' worth 
 64
 
 MYSTERIES 
 
 of fine berries and excellently refined sugar 
 were scorching. 
 
 Then, suddenly, that little monitor that 
 dwells in the breasts of cooks caused Mrs. 
 Wardell to cry, "Oh, mercy, my jam!" and 
 to fly from the side of her friend. 
 
 As Mrs. Wardell entered the living-room 
 the accusing odors greeted her nostrils, and 
 she hurried into the kitchen. The sight she 
 saw was certainly bewildering. The kettle of 
 preserves had been lifted from the stove, the 
 contents poured from the slightly scorched 
 caldron into porcelain pans and set upon the 
 kitchen table, and all was well. The jam was 
 saved. 
 
 But by whom ? That was what Mrs. War- 
 dell excitedly asked her daughters when they 
 returned. 
 
 "Some one came into the kitchen, lifted 
 that great kettle from the fire, poured the 
 fruit into those pans, and filled the kettle 
 with fresh water. Now, who in the world " 
 
 Her eyes wandered to the only house near 
 at hand, the house occupied by Lena 
 65
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 Rysdael, who would not speak to them, 
 and her words died. Rue laughed with a 
 little choke at the end of the laugh. Annie 
 Dee said : 
 
 "That's what I call clean sport." 
 
 But no one gave words to the thought in 
 their minds. They agreed to call it "The 
 Morning of the Hidden Hand," and to let it 
 go at that. 
 
 Robert was in Chicago for a week on busi- 
 ness connected with the building of the dam. 
 The girls had made him take with him some 
 photographs of the house to show the Curtis 
 brothers. 
 
 "Show them the befores and afters," said 
 Annie Dee. "I do so want them to pass 
 judgment on what we've done with Aunt 
 Amrah's things. You must tell them that all 
 her old friends approve, which is interesting, 
 considering that they came for the purpose 
 of disapproving." 
 
 During Robert's absence the household 
 had begun to suffer from that peculiar aim- 
 lessness that invariably creeps into a house 
 66
 
 MYSTERIES 
 
 when there is no man beneath the roof. There 
 was a general loss of interest in meals, a fall- 
 ing-off of promptness, and a decrease of 
 pleasure in the afternoon toilets. To be sure, 
 there were callers in plenty, for Dalroy was 
 feeling more sociably inclined toward the 
 Wardells than at first. 
 
 Some of the callers were particularly lo- 
 quacious. Miss Nancy Ferris, for example, 
 who, having called once, seemed speedily to 
 acquire the habit, was the self-elected his- 
 torian of the place. The only trouble with her 
 history was that it made a specialty of what 
 may be termed the dark features. For ex- 
 ample, it did not occur to her to mention that 
 the Sessions had been judges, clergymen, and 
 professors; but she was very specific about 
 the insanity that had broken out in the 
 family here and there. She told at great 
 length how Delia Sessions's mother, for no 
 imaginable reason, had stolen all manner of 
 things and had hidden them away like a 
 naughty child. 
 
 "She ran to teaspoons more than to any- 
 67
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 thing else," said Miss Ferris. "Just imagine 
 the feelings of a hostess who found on the de- 
 parture of her guests that from one to six of 
 her best teaspoons were missing! It went on 
 for months and years. Why, it was the great- 
 est mystery we ever had in Dalroy! Of 
 course, after it was cleared up, Mrs. Sessions 
 was put in the charge of a caretaker and not 
 allowed to go out. She was such a social per- 
 son, too!'* 
 
 "You don't mean to say," cried Rue, 
 "that Mrs. Sessions's neighbors realized 
 that she was really suffering from a mental 
 illness, and yet would n't do anything to 
 make her happy would n't ask her out or 
 go to see her? I should have thought they'd 
 have made her a present of all the teaspoons 
 in the neighborhood if that would have com- 
 forted her any." 
 
 "Oh, she didn't want the spoons! She 
 wanted the fun of stealing them. It would 
 n't do to indulge a tendency like that. It 
 would be bad for the patient in the first 
 place, and it might encourage such a tend- 
 68
 
 MYSTERIES 
 
 ency in others. What I wished to speak about, 
 however, was the daughter, Delia Sessions. 
 She's a good-enough girl so far as any one 
 knows, but she's the living image of her 
 mother." 
 
 "Her mother must have been pretty," 
 said Annie Dee. "I think Delia is lovely." 
 
 "Oh, she's pretty enough, if you come to 
 that!" admitted Miss Ferris. "But old resi- 
 dents are inclined to ask, 'Will she walk in 
 her mother's footsteps ? Will the resemblance 
 carry further than feature and form?" 
 
 " I suppose the old residents ask that every 
 time they see the poor thing," Rue could not 
 help saying. "Did you say you knew her, 
 sister ? Why not have her up to the house, if 
 she'll come? We have dozens of teaspoons, 
 so she'll have difficulty in depriving us 
 utterly." 
 
 Miss Ferris looked at Rue with a grieved 
 expression. 
 
 "My dear young lady," she said, "I think 
 you mean to be rude to me, but I have no in- 
 tention of feeling offended. I have lived much 
 69
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 longer than you and I know that the world 
 is not the nice place you think it. It is inter- 
 esting but not nice." 
 
 With that she quite deliberately turned 
 her back on the sisters and devoted herself to 
 Mrs. Wardell. 
 
 "You were rude, my dear," Mrs. Wardell 
 said to Rue when their guest had gone. "I 
 never heard you speak like that before in my 
 life." 
 
 "Why could n't the old cat keep her claws 
 in, then?" Rue protested, with the tears 
 starting to her eyes at her mother's rebuke. 
 
 "I think I understand Miss Ferris better 
 than you do," Mrs. Wardell said gently. 
 " She has n't had enough in her life to occupy 
 her talents. She has had to take her excite- 
 ment by watching others. She 's really a gen- 
 tlewoman ; you can tell that by her voice and 
 her gestures and her modest way of dressing. 
 The trouble is, she has n't had an oppor- 
 tunity to exercise her social gifts." 
 
 "Social gifts!" groaned Rue and Annie 
 Dee in unison. But their mother paid no 
 70
 
 MYSTERIES 
 
 attention to them. "Have you noticed how 
 much she enjoys the little ceremony of after- 
 noon tea ? If she had lived in a place where 
 entertaining was the custom and where there 
 was some chance of conversing about inter- 
 esting things, how different she would have 
 been ! She loves to come here just as she loves 
 to visit Mrs. Thwait, because she is properly 
 received. If you had a man come to your 
 door who had been eating boot-straps and 
 old gloves up in the Arctic regions, think what 
 a meal you 'd set out for him ! Well, here 's a 
 woman who has had only old gloves and boot- 
 straps in a mental way, and I mean to serve 
 her some pleasantly seasoned and wholesome 
 dishes. That's going to be my own private, 
 especial undertaking. You girls are full of 
 plans, and Robert has his time all laid out 
 for him; but as for me, I'm slipping into 
 the 'gray-and-content-before-the-fire' stage. 
 Only it's likely to be discontent and gray- 
 ness with me if I don't have something to 
 do." 
 Rue, looking up half shyly at the mother
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 who so seldom unburdened her heart, saw her 
 lips quivering. 
 
 "You, mother!" she said reproachfully. 
 "Why, you're the most useful person I 
 know! Whatever should we do without 
 you?" 
 
 "You'll be doing without me in a very 
 little while," Mrs. Wardell replied, trying to 
 hold her voice steady. "That will be quite 
 right, and just the way I really want it 
 to be ; but I shall be left desperately lonely 
 if" 
 
 "If what?" 
 
 "If I have n't my own game to play." 
 
 "You mean, don't you," said Rue, "that 
 you 'd like to stay in this mean little town, as 
 Mr. Harmon calls it, and try to help it?" 
 
 "Would n't that be worth doing? I don't 
 want to go backward; when my day comes 
 for passing on into the other life, I should 
 not wish to go to your father less of a woman 
 than he left me. I 'd like to surprise him. Do 
 you understand? I'd like to be something 
 more than he ever dreamed I was and he 
 72
 
 MYSTERIES 
 
 always gave me credit for much more than I 
 deserved." 
 
 "Oh, mother," murmured Annie Dee, 
 throwing her impulsive arms about her 
 mother's neck, "shall we ever be like you 
 ever be in the least like you ? " 
 
 Rue turned away and walked into the 
 kitchen. They heard her working there 
 among the cooking-things, and after a while 
 Annie Dee went out to see what was hap- 
 pening. 
 
 "Oh, coffee gelatin pudding!" she ex- 
 claimed. "How nice! For supper, sister?" 
 
 "Not for us," said Rue shortly, without 
 looking round. "For Miss Ferris."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 BENEVOLENT INTRUDERS 
 
 WRAPPED up in the responsibilities of his 
 undertaking, Robert Wardell came back from 
 Chicago. He thought of nothing and talked 
 of nothing except the dam. He worked even- 
 ings, and he was off early in the morning; he 
 carried his luncheon with him chiefly that he 
 might sit on the river bank at noon and con- 
 template the work that had been done. 
 
 Meanwhile, he was learning the great art 
 of managing men. As his workmen were 
 mostly Greeks and as Robert's knowledge of 
 Greece was wholly bookish, having to do with 
 the country and its inhabitants about 500 
 B.C., he had his troubles. 
 
 Moreover, Dalroy disapproved of the 
 Greeks. It did not like the dark, bright-eyed, 
 foreign-speaking little men who walked about 
 the streets looking at everything with the 
 inquisitiveness of children, and who, when 
 74
 
 BENEVOLENT INTRUDERS 
 
 they were off duty, danced round and round, 
 locked in each other's arms, to the music of 
 an accordion. Why, the grave people of Dal- 
 roy wished to know, did they dance? Why 
 did they sit in groups singing curious, wild 
 songs and thus disturb the early-retiring in- 
 habitants of a respectable town? 
 
 Patricia Quincannon felt differently about 
 the Greeks. Once, when she was talking with 
 Robert about them, she quoted : 
 
 "How oft beneath far Syrian skies 
 Have I looked up and thought of home." 
 
 "Our skies seem as alien to them as the 
 Syrian skies to the Englishman," she said 
 sympathetically. " It would be fine, Robert, 
 if you could do something to show that you 
 did n't want them to feel like strangers. To 
 think of them away from all their women and 
 children!" 
 
 It was Patricia's suggestion that Robert 
 should take an occasional meal with his work- 
 men, and after talking the matter over with 
 Mr. Harmon, Robert ventured upon the ex- 
 periment. Every Saturday night he ate with 
 75
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 the Greeks, and always brought some con- 
 tribution to the feast. 
 
 "I don't know whether it's good discipline 
 or not," Robert said. 
 
 "It 's good brotherhood," Patricia re- 
 torted. "You're so terribly dignified for a 
 young person that you'll never let down the 
 bars too much. They'll get to coming to you 
 with their troubles, and that will be perfectly 
 fine." 
 
 "Oh, will it, though ? " said Robert. " I Ve 
 troubles enough of my own." 
 
 Nevertheless, lie followed Patricia's advice 
 and with good results. His natural hearti- 
 ness and good-fellowship delighted the men. 
 When they sang the songs of their country, 
 he responded with songs of his land; he could 
 laugh as gayly as they, and was as eager to 
 learn their tongue as they were to learn his. 
 They began to feel at ease like children 
 who, having ventured far from home, at last 
 see a familiar face. 
 
 Robert, of course, reported to his family 
 concerning the impression that the pictures of 
 76
 
 BENEVOLENT INTRUDERS 
 
 the house had made upon Gordon Curtis and 
 his brother. 
 
 "They said the house looked great," he 
 announced. "Not that they thought it 
 looked just as it had during their aunt's 
 time. They wanted to know which of my 
 sisters was responsible for the skittish ap- 
 pearance of the sitting-room, and I told 
 them my younger sister." 
 
 "Robert Wardell!" protested Annie Dee. 
 "You know that the room looked that way 
 from the first." 
 
 A shout of laughter went up from Annie 
 Dee's scornful family. 
 
 "Annie Dee," exclaimed her brother, "can 
 you look me in the eyes and tell me that this 
 coquettish room is such as Amrah Curtis, 
 spinster, would have created? You cannot! 
 But I'm bound to say that her nephews 
 thought it interesting, even if changed. 
 They are coming to Dalroy presently, by the 
 way; they Ve some notion of going into busi- 
 ness here. At present they're in the auto- 
 mobile supply business, but merely as a 
 77
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 makeshift till Wylie has finished at the uni- 
 versity. He's been going the year round and 
 so has had no vacation for three years, and 
 his brother has been running the business to 
 keep them going and to avoid drawing on 
 their capital. They may invest here in Dal- 
 roy now that Wylie 's free." 
 
 "How soon are they coming?" asked 
 Mrs. Wardell with some apprehension. "It 
 would n't be very pleasant if they asked us 
 to give up the house." 
 
 " But the house is ours for a year, mother, 
 in return for the improvements that we've 
 put on it. At the end of a year they'll be 
 welcome to it." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Mrs. Wardell musingly, 
 "I may want to stay here always. If all of 
 you children go scampering off down the 
 road, as you presently will, Dalroy will suit 
 me much better than the city. Mrs. Thwait 
 and I are starting a woman's club, and we're 
 to work for the library. We even dream of a 
 hospital some day. I 'm laying out work for 
 myself in every direction; but never mind 
 78
 
 BENEVOLENT INTRUDERS 
 
 about that now. We want to hear more about 
 the Curtis boys, Bob." 
 
 "First-rate fellows," said Robert. "A lit- 
 tle more than medium height, good shoul- 
 ders, fine athletic records, good business 
 sense." 
 
 "Just the same," said Rue, "I don't think 
 I want them to come sailing into our harbor. 
 I like them in the offing, vague and gray, like 
 ships seen through mist. At close range they 
 will probably be like any one else." 
 
 A few days later Robert announced that 
 the Curtises would come in a day or two. At 
 once Rue and Annie Dee began each keep- 
 ing the fact from the other to imagine the 
 romantic circumstances under which they 
 would meet the brothers; but the facts 
 proved to be as different from their expecta- 
 tions as they possibly could be. 
 
 Mrs. Wardell was spending the afternoon 
 with Mrs. Thwait, working upon some de- 
 tail connected with the new public library, 
 and the two sisters were alone. The afternoon 
 was hot and the girls were not disposed to be 
 79
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 very industrious. Annie Dee had received 
 two answers to her poetry advertisement and 
 was idly trying to fill her orders. One was 
 from the employees of a box manufacturer 
 who wished to present their head with a gold 
 watch on his fiftieth birthday ; the other was 
 from a Swedish chauffeur who wished to 
 marry an Irish cook. Annie Dee decided to 
 fill the chauffeur's order first. 
 
 "All love-songs are alike," she declared. 
 "Rue, couldn't I call this poem 'Irish 
 Eyes'?" 
 
 "It seems to me," said Rue, wishing that 
 her sister would let her read in peace, "that 
 I Ve heard of something of that sort before." 
 
 "It would be original with me, for I never 
 heard of it. 'Irish eyes of misty blue/ 
 Would n't that be a good first line?" 
 
 "It's the first one that would come into 
 the head of any commercial poet like your- 
 self." 
 
 "Then, how is 'O'er the bogland gayly 
 tripping'?" demanded Annie Dee triumph- 
 antly. 
 
 80
 
 BENEVOLENT INTRUDERS 
 
 "That cook is n't near a bogland. Did n't 
 you say she lived at Lake Forest ? There are 
 no bogs there only fogs." 
 
 "Like a wraith through white fogs drift- 
 ing,'" began Annie Dee; but it was too hot 
 to go on. 
 
 "Fm not going to write poetry," she an- 
 nounced. "I'm going to wash my hair. 
 Only I ought to have soft water for that, 
 ought n't I ? And that miserable cistern 
 pump is out of order. Don't you suppose that 
 we could mend it if we tried, Rue ? Bobbie 
 put new washers on the old thing, did n't he ? 
 But that did n't help ; so the trouble must be 
 down at the intake. Probably there's some- 
 thing obstructing the mouth of the pipe." 
 
 "Probably!" murmured Rue, wondering, 
 as she began another chapter of her novel, 
 whether anything in the world could keep 
 Annie Dee quiet. Nothing could, apparently, 
 for she was saying: 
 
 "There's a ladder in the cistern, isn't 
 there? I've a mind to go down and see 
 whether I can find out what the trouble is." 
 81
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "But you might slip!" said Rue in alarm. 
 "And even if you did n't, you could n't do 
 any good. Now don't go and do anything 
 foolish, Annie Dee." 
 
 However, Annie Dee was not to be dis- 
 suaded, and presently, clad in her gymnasium 
 suit, with rubber-soled shoes on her feet, she 
 appeared ready for action. She threw back 
 the cistern top and, trembling a little, but 
 quite eager for the experience, descended into 
 the chill gloom. 
 
 "Oo-oo-oo, what a froggy place!" she 
 called back. "I feel just like a mermaid." 
 
 "I'm going to hold on to the top of the 
 ladder," Rue announced. 
 
 "Why? It's nailed. But do lie down and 
 look into the cistern, sister. Is n't the water 
 dark? Is n't it wet? Oo-oo-oo, but it's cold! 
 How my voice echoes, does n't it?" 
 
 "Come out as soon as you can!" Rue 
 pleaded. "You can see for yourself that you 
 don't know what to do. The cistern man 
 may come to-morrow. I don't like to have 
 you down there." 
 
 82
 
 BENEVOLENT INTRUDERS 
 
 "Glory and love to the men of old!" 
 sang Annie Dee, striking up the stirring Sol- 
 diers' Chorus from " Faust," 
 
 "Their sons may copy their virtues bold, 
 Courage in heart and sword in hand, 
 Yes, ready to fight and ready to die for 
 their fa-aa-ther-land." 
 
 "Don't get to fooling!" Rue called. "Can 
 you see anything? Of course you can't. I 
 told you you would n't." 
 
 But Annie Dee was listening to the deafen- 
 ing resonance of her own voice. 
 
 "Many a maiden fair is waiting here to greet her 
 
 truant soldier lover, 
 And many a heart will fail and brow grow pale to 
 
 hear 
 The tale of cruel peril he has run " 
 
 "Annie!" cried Rue, in sudden alarm. 
 "The ladder's slipping! The nails are giving! 
 Quick! Come back at once!" 
 
 But the mournful echoes of the cistern 
 blended all sounds, and Rue's words were 
 lost in the rush and resonance of Annie Dee's 
 song: 
 
 "Glory and love to the men of old " 
 83
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 There was a splash, a shriek, a last bellow- 
 ing of echoes, and then silence. 
 
 The silence was, indeed, complete. Rue 
 made no outcry. To whom, indeed, should 
 she cry ? Few came up that lane ; Esau Rys- 
 dael was not at home, as she knew, and it 
 never occurred to her to ask help of Lena. 
 Besides, there was no time to waste. She ran 
 for the clothesline, and with trembling fin- 
 gers fastened one end to a stout tree, and, 
 after making a loop in the other end, threw 
 it into the cistern. From the depths came a 
 cheerful voice : 
 
 "Don't worry, sis; I've got the rope. 
 Tighten it up, please. Right-O! But how '11 
 you haul me up? Better run for help. And 
 don't worry. I 'm enjoying my bath." 
 
 Rue realized that she never could pull her 
 sister up alone. She must get help ; but could 
 Annie Dee hold out as long as that? The 
 water was very cold, and Annie Dee was only 
 a little, delicate thing only a very slight, 
 delicate, precious thing. Hoping that by some 
 miracle a delivery-man or some stroller 
 84
 
 BENEVOLENT INTRUDERS 
 
 might be in the lane, she ran wildly toward 
 the front gate. 
 
 Meanwhile, Annie Dee made up her mind 
 that the one essential thing for her to do was 
 to keep up her courage, and could she do that 
 better than by singing? She swept on to the 
 finale of the great chorus : 
 
 "Ready to fight and ready to die for their 
 fatherland." 
 
 Meanwhile, Rue, seeing yet hardly be- 
 lieving that she saw two young men at the 
 gate, tossed her two arms wildly over her 
 head and shouted incoherently. 
 
 She always said that she told them dis- 
 tinctly that her sister was in the cistern cling- 
 ing to a rope and that she asked them, politely 
 if hastily, to come and pull her out. The 
 Curtis boys they were the Curtis boys 
 bore witness that she said nothing, but that 
 she behaved like a person who had barely 
 escaped the hand of an assassin. 
 
 At any rate, she turned and ran back to 
 the cistern, and they followed as fast as their 
 feet could carry them. Then, at the rim of 
 85
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 the cistern, Rue stood and pointed with 
 tragic finger toward the aperture, from which 
 came in sepulchral yet courageous notes : 
 
 "Yes, ready to fight and ready to die for their 
 fa-aa-therland." 
 
 "What is it?" demanded Gordon Curtis. 
 
 "My sister!" cried Rue, articulate at last. 
 "The ladder slipped. She's in the water. 
 It's cold." 
 
 "Why is she singing?" 
 
 "Because she's scared and doesn't 
 want to be." 
 
 Wylie Curtis was on his knees and peering 
 in. He saw a pool of black water, still and 
 deep, and a light form floating on it, clinging 
 with small white hands to a rope. The din of 
 the song rilled his ears. 
 
 "Oh, hush up!" he shouted in his com- 
 manding masculine voice. "I want to talk." 
 
 "Your turn," came back a blithe but 
 somewhat shaky voice. 
 
 "Put that rope beneath your arms," he 
 ordered. "Can you do it?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 86
 
 BENEVOLENT INTRUDERS 
 
 "Now cross it over in front and twist it. 
 Ready?" 
 
 "In a minute. Ready!" 
 
 "We're going to pull," Wylie warned her. 
 "It will hurt you." 
 
 "Let it." 
 
 The two boys began to pull at the rope 
 hand over hand, steadily, surely, gently. 
 Rue lay flat on her face, with her arms out- 
 stretched, ready to grasp her sister. 
 
 "I'm afraid," said Gordon Curtis, "that 
 it's hurting pretty badly. Let's get it over 
 with quick, Wylie." 
 
 Rue bent lower, reached farther, and 
 caught a very wet, very cold little form in 
 her arms. 
 
 "Careful there!" Gordon cried to Rue. 
 "You '11 go in yourself!" 
 
 But Rue was not thinking of herself as she 
 pulled the shivering little form of her sister 
 over the rim ; she was thinking only of poor 
 Annie Dee, who lay still, with her hands over 
 her eyes. The three young people had the 
 sense to let her alone, and in a second or two 
 87
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 she got to her feet and managed to make a 
 little bow to the boys. 
 
 "Whom have I the honor of addressing?'* 
 she asked gayly, with blue lips. 
 
 "Oh, sister, come into the house, if you 
 don't want to catch your death of cold!" 
 begged Rue, and then, turning to the young 
 men, said, "Oh, do please be so kind as to 
 build a fire in the kitchen stove and put the 
 kettle on! She must have some hot coffee 
 at once, must n't she ? Oh, if only mother 
 were at home!" 
 
 She took her sister's arm and ran with her 
 toward the house; but at the door Annie Dee 
 freed herself and took one look at the benevo- 
 lent intruders, who were already filling their 
 arms with fuel at the woodpile. 
 
 "I've always kept your picture wreathed 
 with woodbine!" she cried. 
 
 As they looked up, she fled to her room; 
 and while her sister rolled her in woolen 
 blankets and tumbled her into bed she wept 
 copiously in true girlish fashion. 
 
 "It was horribly froggy!" she moaned. 
 88
 
 BENEVOLENT INTRUDERS 
 
 "Not that I saw a frog; but it was just what 
 frogs would have liked. And, oh, sis, my arms 
 ache so! And I'm so cold! I thought every 
 minute I should get a cramp. I was sure it 
 was coming; but it was you who came 
 with the benefactors. I'm all right again." 
 
 At last Rue, feeling rather weak now that 
 the excitement was over, went to the kitchen 
 to make the coffee ; but she found it already 
 made. 
 
 "We make excellent coffee," said Gordon 
 Curtis. "Why be unduly modest about it? 
 Here it is. Please convey it to the mermaid 
 with our congratulations." 
 
 He was using the lightest tone he could 
 summon. Rue understood the reason, and 
 she, too, did her best not to be serious. 
 
 "She calls you the benefactors. It is your 
 official title. And she hopes you liked her 
 voice." 
 
 "Immensely," both brothers assured her, 
 as she fled with the coffee. "Immensely!"
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE TOPAZ NECKLACE 
 
 ABOUT bringing Delia Sessions to the 
 house, Annie Dee was as good as her word. 
 She had met her several times at church en- 
 tertainments and at the reading-room of the 
 library, and had found her quaint and inter- 
 esting. To be sure, Delia seemed a little re- 
 luctant to accept Annie Dee's first invita- 
 tion. She seemed to be saying, "Are you sure 
 you want me ? Have n't you heard my story ? 
 Have n't they told you that my mother was 
 a thief or a crazy woman or both ? Are 
 you my friend in spite of it'or because you 
 know nothing of it?" 
 
 But that unspoken inquiry met with no 
 response from Annie Dee. It was not always 
 possible to tell what was going on in the mind 
 of that capricious young person. Delia Ses- 
 sions spent some time wondering about it 
 the day she first went to the Wardell cottage. 
 90
 
 THE TOPAZ NECKLACE 
 
 Annie Dee was waiting for her at the gate, 
 and waved so gay a welcome to her that Delia 
 involuntarily quickened her footsteps. She 
 was a girl with few friends with none who 
 answered the need of her starved heart. Her 
 life had been shadowed by the knowledge of 
 her mother's malady and by the realization 
 that her story was passed on to strangers by 
 her Dalroy neighbors. Loyalty to her dead 
 mother, pride, shyness, and sensitiveness had 
 caused her to draw within herself, and she 
 confided in no one, not even her elderly 
 cousin, the postmistress of Dalroy, with 
 whom she lived. Delia served her as house- 
 keeper, and their relations seemed to end 
 with their practical service to each other. 
 
 " How nice of you not to be late," said 
 Annie Dee as she went out into the lane to 
 meet her. "Mother and Rue are both going 
 out presently, and I want them to meet you 
 before they go. Is n't this a wonderful day?" 
 
 "It 's a pretty day," said Delia primly. 
 "But I don't often think about the weather; 
 do you?"
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "I should say I did. I'm dreadfully par- 
 ticular about my weather. There is n't a bet- 
 ter critic of it anywhere ! No one can make 
 more cheerful noise over a good day or more 
 of a row over a bad one than I can." 
 
 "Well, it's on account of the bad days 
 that I taught myself not to pay much atten- 
 tion to the good ones," Delia explained. 
 "Not to care how things come, or whether 
 they're good or bad, that's my idea of get- 
 ting along in life." 
 
 When Delia entered the house she looked 
 about her with shy enjoyment. 
 
 "Oh," she said, "I never dreamed you'd 
 have a place like this! The house always 
 seemed to me like a little ruin. How did you 
 make it look so bright?" 
 
 "Oh, it was n't a ruin it was only lone- 
 some!" said Annie Dee, laughing. "We 
 heartened it up, chucked it under the chin, 
 slapped it on the back, and it felt better at 
 once. Mother, this is Miss Sessions. Rue, 
 you've met Delia Sessions? Oh, don't be 
 frightened, Delia; that isn't a rat you see 
 92
 
 THE TOPAZ NECKLACE 
 
 under the chair. It's only another of our 
 guests one of the Rysdael squirrels. They 
 're making rather free here just now, and I 
 suppose we ought to discipline them, but 
 when they sit up begging with their hands on 
 their hearts, we can't resist them." 
 
 "I only stayed to welcome you, Miss Ses- 
 sions," said Mrs. Wardell, smiling at the girl 
 in her motherly way. "We 're having a meet- 
 ing at Mrs. Thwait's this afternoon at which 
 we hope to form a woman's club for Dalroy 
 and not exclusively for middle-aged ladies. 
 We hope to make it so interesting that our 
 young friends will consent to join." 
 
 "Will it be a study club, Mrs. Wardell?" 
 asked the girl earnestly. " I 'd like to take up 
 some course of study and improve myself." 
 
 "Yes, a club for social and literary pur- 
 poses with a little music and art thrown in. 
 Maybe we shall do some village-improve- 
 ment work, too. I 'd like a tree-planting day 
 and a children's day even a mother's day." 
 
 "I don't think I like set occasions," said 
 the girl. "Anniversaries are quite as likely to 
 93
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 be dismal reminders as glad ones. It always 
 annoys me to have people decide that they'll 
 be happy on a certain day. I suppose I'm 
 obstinate, but it makes me want to close my 
 doors and sulk." 
 
 Mrs. Wardell laughed good-humoredly. 
 "You're a born individualist, then. Well, if 
 we can get you into our club and make a 
 cooperator out of you, we shall be fortunate 
 indeed. An individualist converted into a 
 cooperator is the most effective human being 
 in the world. Forgive me for leaving you. 
 I shall hope to call on your cousin and your- 
 self some time, for I should n't think of wait- 
 ing for such a busy woman as your cousin to 
 call on me." 
 
 Delia flushed through her dark skin. She 
 was always ready to discount kind things that 
 were said to her, but it was impossible to dis- 
 trust these people. Could it be, she won- 
 dered, that these newcomers, so gracious in 
 manner, really knew how little account in 
 Dalroy she and her cousin were ? Her cousin 
 was, after all, only a little, worried, wizened, 
 94
 
 THE TOPAZ NECKLACE 
 
 ill-favored woman. Delia desperately feared 
 that she might come to resemble her cousin, 
 and it was that fear that had set her to cul- 
 tivating the habit of indifference. Yet here 
 were these people, so delightful, so different 
 from any she knew, treating her like a possi- 
 ble friend ! A warm little glow of self-appre- 
 ciation flooded the girl. The tight expression 
 about her mouth relaxed; her awkwardness 
 disappeared. 
 
 Rue brought in some cakes and lemonade 
 and put them on a taboret. 
 
 "My humble contribution," she said. 
 "Also my peace offering. I am off to the 
 woods, Miss Sessions, to find a good place for 
 a picnic. Mother is giving a woodland party 
 next week while the Curtises are here, and as 
 I 'm cursed with a systematic mind and can't 
 leave things to chance, I must go and find the 
 precise spot. Get down, you little beggar!" 
 she went on to one of the squirrels, which had 
 leaped upon her shoulder. " I Ve fed you till 
 you're in danger of your death from indi- 
 gestion. We ought not to allow them in the 
 95
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 house," she said to Delia, "but we're such 
 weak characters that we can't refuse them." 
 
 After Rue had gone from the room, Delia 
 Sessions sat thinking for a moment or two 
 in silence, while Annie Dee served the iced 
 drink. This family was the kind she had 
 always wanted people to be the kind they 
 were in books ! She could see Rue in the ad- 
 joining room tying on her graceful sun-hat, 
 and wished that she and Annie Dee were go- 
 ing to the woods, too ; but she was too shy to 
 propose it. She wondered why she so seldom 
 went to the woods. Dalroy was surrounded 
 by lovely groves and it had its fine river, but 
 she had made no use of them. She had al- 
 ways excused herself by saying she had no 
 friend to go with her, yet here was this much- 
 sought young woman going by herself, and 
 well pleased at the prospect, apparently. 
 There was something the matter with her- 
 self, Delia decided. She lacked "go"; she 
 did not know enough to use what opportuni- 
 ties for pleasure she had! 
 
 "Please undo my chain, sister!" Rue 
 96
 
 THE TOPAZ NECKLACE 
 
 called, and Annie Dee ran to unclasp the deli- 
 cate strand of gold about Rue's neck. A 
 small stone, a topaz, yellow as living sun- 
 shine and clear as crystal, hung from the 
 chain. Delia had noticed it swinging gayly 
 in its golden circlet, and had thought it just 
 the sort of jewel for a girl like Rue to wear. 
 
 "Did you bring your sewing?" asked 
 Annie Dee when they were settled by them- 
 selves. "I'm so glad! I'm embroidering 
 little baskets of pink roses on these towels. 
 Are n't they sweet ? I 'm making mother a 
 set of a dozen. What are you making? Oh, 
 a bureau cover ! How pretty ! Are n't you 
 glad you're a girl? Boys miss a lot by not 
 sewing, don't they? I think they have a very 
 dull time of it in their off hours. Don't you 
 hate to have a man round the house all 
 day?" 
 
 "I don't know, for I never had one. My 
 father died years ago, and I Ve no brother." 
 
 "How stupid of me! But I am that way 
 stupid. I don't see why. You 'd think I 
 was going to be intelligent to hear me talk 
 97
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 that is, if you did n't listen too long. My 
 father is dead, too, but I've a brother. Of 
 course you must n't think that I dislike men, 
 Delia. I was only meaning that I liked to 
 have little times like this when I could be a 
 complete girl and not have to live up to any 
 masculine ideas." 
 
 Meanwhile, Rue had turned her back on 
 the town, wandered down the lane, climbed 
 a fence, crossed a meadow and come at last 
 to Borrow's Woods. The spell of the sum- 
 mer was waning, but only to yield to the 
 charm of approaching fall. 
 
 As Rue made her way along a wood path 
 she suddenly came upon a man down on his 
 knees, with a magnifying glass in his hand, 
 bending over a granite boulder. That slack, 
 loose-jointed figure, that great head, those 
 rough clothes belonged to Esau Rysdael, the 
 old school-teacher. He had never spoken to 
 Rue, and had seemed not so much as to recog- 
 nize the existence of herself or of her family, 
 yet Rue, seeing him there, felt unaccount- 
 ably social. 
 
 98
 
 WHEN HE RECOGNIZED HER, THE SMILE GAVE PLACE TO A 
 FROWN
 
 THE TOPAZ NECKLACE 
 
 Esau Rysdael heard Rue's feet crunching 
 among the twigs and looked up with a smile ; 
 but when he recognized her, the smile gave 
 place to a frown. That put Rue on her met- 
 tle. Why should she, feeling as glad to be 
 alive as she did, be disliked by a Rysdael or 
 by any one ? 
 
 "Excuse me," she said in the musical 
 voice that was so much like her mother's. 
 "Is it that ladybird you are looking at 
 through your glass?" 
 
 As Rue spoke, Esau Rysdael looked her 
 over; and as he looked, the frown slowly 
 smoothed away. 
 
 "The ladybird," he said deliberately, "is 
 a mere intruder." 
 
 "Like myself," said Rue, flushing. 
 
 "Both you and the ladybird have a right 
 to the woods," he replied. Then, after a 
 pause, he added, " I am collecting lichens. It 
 is a delicate business. Look at this fairy lace 
 that I am trying to detach from the rock and 
 transfer uninjured to my book." 
 
 Rue drew near, and saw upon the rough 
 99
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 surface of the boulder an exquisite pink 
 tracery finer than any imaginable needle- 
 work. 
 
 "I have counted ten varieties of lichen 
 upon this one boulder," went on the natural- 
 ist, "which is really quite a number, though 
 not exceptional not at all exceptional. 
 Are you interested in lichens?" 
 
 "I have n't had much chance to learn of 
 such things, and have n't availed myself, 
 I 'm afraid, of such chances as have come my 
 way. But I should like oh, immensely ! 
 to know about them. I was thinking as I came 
 along that I could only look at the woods with 
 ignorant and uncomprehending eyes." 
 
 "Ah, you feel that, do you?" cried the old 
 teacher with a sudden light in his face. "It 
 is something to have got as far as that." 
 
 "I feel it deeply," said Rue. "Will you tell 
 me how I can learn the things I wish to 
 know ? I can't go to school any more because 
 I must work. My vacation is almost over." 
 
 "You are fortunate," he said shortly. 
 "How would you feel if you had a prolonged 
 100
 
 THE TOPAZ NECKLACE 
 
 vacation thrust upon you ? What if you had 
 been used to one work for years and suddenly 
 found your occupation gone ? " 
 
 Rue 's swift thought told her that he would 
 not have spoken like that in another place, 
 but the quiet woods put them apart from the 
 usual conventionalities. 
 
 "I should find it very hard, Mr. Rysdael." 
 
 "Yet my daughter tells me, Miss Wardell, 
 that you sympathize with the action taken 
 in regard to me." He looked at her with the 
 sharp gaze of the schoolmaster. "You see, I 
 speak out what is in my mind." 
 
 "And so do I," answered Rue. "I only 
 said that I believed in progress, and that I 
 knew there were new things in teaching 
 things that made pupils enthusiastic over 
 their lessons. I thought Dalroy should have 
 the benefit of them. I did n't mean to offend 
 your daughter." 
 
 The old naturalist lifted the ladybird on 
 
 one finger and looked at it for a moment with 
 
 whimsical enjoyment of its beauty; then, as 
 
 it took wing, he turned to Rue with a smile. 
 
 101
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "I know that we have seemed bad neigh- 
 bors," he said; "but my girl, Lena, can't 
 bring herself to take up with any one who 
 does n't stand by me." 
 
 "I don't blame her," Rue declared. "I 
 thought it sweet of her all the time. When- 
 ever I've started to feel angry at the way 
 she treated us, I've straightway forgiven 
 her because I liked her for being so loyal 
 to you." 
 
 "You see," went on the man, "the situa- 
 tion has been a peculiar one. I have been 
 looked on for years as the leading educational 
 man in the county. Now I Ve been put in the 
 wrong by a couple of women with a lot of 
 fads. It has been humiliating." 
 
 Rue made no answer. She wondered 
 whether he in his heart of hearts did not 
 know that he was being unjust. 
 
 "Of course," he said in a changed tone, 
 "I must admit that I am never so happy as 
 when I can go about the woods and amuse 
 myself as I am doing to-day. If I had been 
 allowed to bring my classes to the woods, I 
 
 102
 
 THE TOPAZ NECKLACE 
 
 could have taught them something worth the 
 knowing something they could not have 
 learned from every one. I tried it years ago. 
 But do you suppose the fanatics in the three 
 R's would let me do that ? Not a bit of it. I 
 must stay in the classroom with my pupils 
 and hold them to the same unchanging round. 
 So I did. I gave them so much of what they 
 wanted that I suppose they got tired of it." 
 He sighed heavily. 
 
 "You were ahead of your time. Why 
 don't you form woodland classes now, Mr. 
 Rysdael?" 
 
 He shook his head gloomily and did not 
 answer. There was something almost child- 
 like about him in spite of his schoolmaster 
 manner. 
 
 "Are lichens your specialty?" Rue asked, 
 with her eyes shining with sympathy. 
 
 "Lichens? Oh, no, I cannot say that they 
 receive more of my attention than many 
 other things. All plants, all flowers, all trees 
 interest me, though not more than bird and 
 animal life. Won't you step over to the house 
 103
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 some day and see my specimens? Or per- 
 haps they would not interest you?'* 
 
 He looked wistful, almost timid, like one 
 who fears to have his invitation refused. 
 
 "Of course I'll come!" Rue cried. "If you 
 will make my peace with your daughter." 
 
 "Easily done, easily done," he said quickly. 
 "Lena likes you now wants to know you. 
 It 's only her great loyalty to me that makes 
 her act as she does. I wish she 'd get out more 
 and forget our troubles ; but she stays in and 
 broods over what is to become of us." 
 
 "Yes, of course," Rue murmured. "You'll 
 be wanting to do something soon." With the 
 words came an idea. "Oh, Mr. Rysdael, why 
 not write a book on lichens?" she demanded. 
 "Why, you'd love to, would n't you ? Think 
 what * fairy tales of science' you could tell and 
 what illustrations you could have ! Just fancy 
 a colored print of that!" Rue pointed to 
 the marvelous tracery of the fronded lichen 
 on the rock. "Why, you must have endless 
 things to say on the subject," she added. 
 
 Esau Rysdael looked at her from under his 
 104
 
 THE TOPAZ NECKLACE 
 
 overhanging eyebrows. Absurdly enough, he 
 was shyer than ever. He seemed to be want- 
 ing this resourceful young person to go on. 
 
 " It is what you really care for, is n't it, 
 Mr. Rysdael ? If you wrote a book on the 
 subject, would n't there be a demand for it 
 in schools and colleges? You could write it 
 interestingly and yet in such a way that it 
 would serve for a textbook." 
 
 She received no answer. The old teacher 
 seemed to be thinking, and his eyes fell again 
 to the granite boulder. Then he looked up 
 with a smile. 
 
 "I believe that it's worth thinking about." 
 
 It seemed to Rue the right minute to go 
 she would vanish and leave him to do his 
 thinking. She gave him her best smile and 
 bow and hastened on into the sunlit grove 
 beyond. It was very pleasant there just 
 the place for the picnic. She would have liked 
 to linger, but she was so eager to tell her 
 family about her meeting with Mr. Rysdael 
 that she turned and hastened homeward by 
 another path. 
 
 105
 
 The cottage was wrapped in quiet. Feel- 
 ing certain that Annie Dee was sleeping, Rue 
 stole in noiselessly; and sure enough, curled 
 up in the hammock lay her little sister, dead 
 to joys and troubles. 
 
 Rue had that feeling of vague and utterly 
 senseless irritation she always felt when she 
 got home and found her mother absent. There 
 was no one at all to talk to, although there 
 was so much to tell. She made the best of it 
 by treating herself to a glass of cool milk and 
 looking over a magazine while she rested. 
 Then she took a cool bath and dressed her- 
 self in the thinnest frock she could find a 
 white lawn, sprigged with yellow buttercups. 
 
 "My little topaz goes nicely with this," 
 she said half aloud. "I '11 put that on." 
 
 She remembered that before leaving for the 
 woods she had tossed the chain and pendant 
 on her dressing-table; but it was not there 
 now. 
 
 "Annie Dee has put it away," she said to 
 herself, and searched in the little box where 
 she kept her "pretties." It was not there, 
 1 06
 
 THE TOPAZ NECKLACE 
 
 however, or in the drawers of the dressing- 
 table. Could Annie Dee have put it on? It 
 was not likely, but on the chance of rinding it 
 round her sister's neck, she stole out to the 
 hammock. Annie Dee's white throat was 
 bare. 
 
 As Rue gazed at her sister, Annie Dee's 
 eyelids fluttered and opened. 
 
 "Oh, it's you, sister? Is it time to get 
 supper?" Annie Dee cried. 
 
 "I'm sorry I wakened you, dear. No, it's 
 not quite supper-time. I was looking for my 
 little chain and pendant. I can't find them." 
 
 "You dropped them on the dressing- 
 table" 
 
 "I know. They're not there." 
 
 Annie Dee leaped from her hammock and 
 ran to the bedroom. She searched every- 
 where. Then she turned a white face toward 
 her sister. 
 
 "It's the queerest thing in the world!" 
 
 "Don't mind so much, honey! What's the 
 matter with you, anyway?" 
 
 "Nothing at all. I saw the necklace after 
 107
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 you left. Delia Sessions was looking at it. 
 She said that she thought the way the stone 
 was set was charming. She she was look- 
 ing at it when I went to speak to a delivery- 
 man." 
 
 The words seemed to die in her throat. 
 She tried to strangle the memories as they 
 were born; but in spite of all she could do 
 the stories she had heard of Delia Sessions's 
 half-demented, thieving, piteous little mother 
 came trooping back, and along with them 
 Miss Ferris's remarks about the resem- 
 blance between Delia and her mother. 
 
 "People wonder," Miss Ferris had said, 
 "if she'll follow in her mother's footsteps." 
 
 Rue was remembering all, too, as her sister 
 could see; both of them were trembling as 
 they did when they saw anything ugly or 
 cruel, and the younger sister put the thoughts 
 of both into words when she said : 
 
 "Oh, I wish mother would come!" 
 
 Almost upon the word their mother ap- 
 peared in the doorway, and they blurted out 
 their tale in their clear, excited voices. 
 108
 
 THE TOPAZ NECKLACE 
 
 "What shall we do?" Annie Dee con- 
 cluded. 
 
 "Do?" repeated Mrs. Wardell, with a 
 curious light shining in her eyes. "Why, 
 invite Delia to our picnic the very first of 
 all!" 
 
 "You mean" 
 
 "I mean that the girl did n't do it," Mrs. 
 Wardell declared. "Why, she'd be the last 
 person in Dalroy to do such a thing! Don't 
 you see she would? After all she has suf- 
 fered, she 'd never commit such a fault. And 
 whatever you do, never, never let a hint of 
 this get out. Never tell any one not any 
 one" 
 
 There was a dry little cough at the door, 
 and all three Wardells, turning at once, saw 
 Miss Ferris, acknowledged queen of the town 
 gossips, standing there, with a sardonic 
 smile on her lips that said plainer than words : 
 
 "I told you so."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE SOFTENING OF NANCY FERRIS 
 
 RUE and Annie Dee turned scarlet. Mrs. 
 Wardell grew pale. 
 
 "Come in, Miss Ferris," she said politely. 
 "Come in and sit down." 
 
 Miss Ferris lifted the skirt of her gray silk 
 and entered. She was quite aware that the 
 atmosphere was palpitant. Mrs. Wardell 
 and her daughters stood in embarrassed 
 silence. 
 
 "You heard what we said?" asked Mrs. 
 Wardell, after a moment. 
 
 "I heard a little of it," Miss Ferris re- 
 plied, with her thin lips looking thinner and 
 her pale eyes paler than usual. "And I 
 guessed the rest." 
 
 "So now," quietly said Mrs. Wardell, 
 "you are thinking, 'This is what I predicted/ 
 and you are glad or almost glad that 
 the poor girl seems to have fulfilled your 
 
 1 10
 
 THE SOFTENING OF NANCY 
 
 prophecy. But it is too soon for you to re- 
 joice, if it has occurred to you to do so, 
 Miss Ferris, for our guest has done nothing 
 that would make us lessen our regard for 
 her." 
 
 Miss Ferris smiled a wry little smile, half 
 of irritation, half of admiration, evidently 
 thinking it "thoroughbred" of Mrs. Wardell 
 to put a good face on the matter. Then, as 
 she looked, she saw a change of expression in 
 Mrs. Wardell's face. It melted into sudden 
 and genuine friendliness, as if she had sum- 
 moned some ideal, for a moment lost. 
 
 "Oh, please forgive me," she cried con- 
 tritely, "for foisting such thoughts on you! 
 Why should I think you were rejoicing be- 
 cause that nice girl has been put into an em- 
 barrassing situation? It is true that I saw 
 that look come into your face, Miss Ferris, 
 it told me that you were glad in spite of your 
 better self; but I ought not to have seen it. I 
 ought to have looked away and given your gen- 
 erosity and dignity a chance to take charge 
 of your spirit. I ought to have realized that 
 in
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 you who have known that girl ever since she 
 was a baby and who know all she has suf- 
 fered would be much quicker than I to wish 
 her well and to protect her reputation." 
 
 "But that's not true, mother," broke in 
 the uncompromising Rue. "It was Miss 
 Ferris who told us about Delia, and she 
 need n't have told us at all." 
 
 "I know she told us," said Mrs. Wardell, 
 "but she regretted it. She went further than 
 she meant that day. Is n't that so, Nancy 
 Ferris ? Did n't you lie awake that night 
 after you had gone to bed and wish you had 
 bitten your tongue out before you told the 
 story that prejudiced us against Delia Ses- 
 sions?" 
 
 Nancy Ferris moved restlessly in her chair 
 and her eyes fell; then she lifted them and 
 looked Mrs. Wardell in the face. 
 
 "It is quite true," she said. "I hated my- 
 self for all I had told you that day, not only 
 about Delia, but about other people here in 
 town. I never meant to run on like that; I 
 only wanted to entertain you ; and then, too, 
 112
 
 THE SOFTENING OF NANCY 
 
 stories about people's lives interest me. But 
 when I thought how I must have seemed to 
 you, I was ashamed. I 'm known as the vil- 
 lage gossip, and have been for years. I have 
 lived here a long time, and I Ve taken a great 
 interest in people and can't help knowing 
 their stories." 
 
 "Of course you can't. In a way it was en- 
 joyment of life and alertness that made you 
 take such a keen interest in your neighbors. 
 You learned your book of comedy through 
 and through. If you had been a playwright, 
 no one would have blamed you for studying 
 human nature in a satirical spirit. I only 
 regret that a mind like yours, so keen and 
 restless, had nothing else to occupy it ; or, if 
 you were destined to be a recorder of human 
 frailties, I wish you might have done it in a 
 literary, impersonal way instead of carrying 
 stories from neighbor to neighbor." 
 
 Miss Ferris flushed deeply, but she did not 
 withdraw her gaze ; she still faced her friendly 
 judge, although the tears sprang into her 
 eyes.
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "I wish it, too," she said beneath her 
 breath. 
 
 "You might be going to the university at 
 this minute," went on Mrs. Wardell. " Plenty 
 of women of our age do. You could be study- 
 ing some form of art or philosophy or taking 
 up a course in literature. We're going to 
 make things of that sort possible here in 
 Dalroy, as you have no doubt heard, and 
 I want you for a charter member of our 
 woman's club." 
 
 ! "No!" broke from Nancy Ferris. "After 
 what you've thought and said?" 
 
 "It's over," said Mrs. Wardell, with her 
 hand outstretched. "I've finished. I know 
 that till the last day of your life you will 
 never repeat the conversation you overheard 
 between my daughters and myself. You will 
 never put us in the wrong by letting any one 
 know that suspicion of our guest crossed our 
 minds, even in the faintest, swiftest way. 
 You'll forgive us for everything, and you'll 
 help us find the thing that's lost?" 
 
 "Indeed I will and shall be glad to," said 
 114
 
 Miss Ferris heartily. "I'll help you to the 
 best of my ability; and whether we find it or 
 not. I shall never, to my dying day, speak of 
 the matter. YouVe said some brave things 
 to me, Mrs. Wardell, and I won't deny that 
 they hurt, but I feel I deserved them. I 'm 
 going to forgive you for being just to me 
 and that 's a hard thing to do, sometimes." 
 
 Eagerly, anxiously, they searched the 
 house over; they looked in all imaginable and 
 unimaginable places. They reviewed all pos- 
 sible theories; the "evidence" was gone over 
 again and again. It came to this: the last 
 person seen handling the necklace was Delia 
 Sessions, daughter of a kleptomaniac, and the 
 necklace was gone. 
 
 But Mrs. Wardell's faith did not falter. 
 
 "I'm going to sit down," she said, after 
 the search had been given up for the time 
 being, "and write the invitations to my 
 woodland party. Would you like to help me, 
 Miss Ferris? You write such a charming 
 hand! You see, I want to make it clear that 
 I and my family are to be counted in with
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 the neighbors here at Dalroy; and then, too, 
 I wish to entertain while the Curtises are 
 here. The first person to be invited shall be 
 Delia Sessions." 
 
 "Good for you, mamma!" cried Annie 
 Dee, throwing her arms about her mother's 
 neck. "You have n't an idea how glad I 
 am that I made your acquaintance early in 
 life!" 
 
 Miss Ferris, somewhat shaken by the 
 swift tempo of Wardell conversation, sank 
 into a chair by the reading-table. 
 
 " Indeed," she said, " I '11 be most happy 
 to help you with the invitations." 
 
 She was quiet, even humble, but Mrs. 
 Wardell knew, and the girls knew, that over 
 and over again in her head went the per- 
 plexing fact that Rue's pretty necklace was 
 gone, that Delia Sessions was the person who 
 had last handled it, and that she, Nancy 
 Ferris, had always said that if you watched 
 the girl long enough you would see what you 
 would see ! 
 
 The day of the picnic dawned gloriously, 
 116
 
 THE SOFTENING OF NANCY 
 
 and that, according to Annie Dee, was de- 
 cidedly unconventional. 
 
 "Now, the orthodox picnic day," she said, 
 " is lowering, or at least uncertain. The dis- 
 tant muttering of thunder is heard; the 
 wind is in the wrong direction. But to-day, 
 as you can see for yourself, is cool, bright, 
 and steady. It is n't natural it means 
 that something strange is going to happen." 
 
 Mrs. Wardell and Rue, busy with sand- 
 wiches, meat loaves, cakes and ices, for once 
 paid little attention to Annie Dee and her 
 prophesyings. 
 
 Their own thoughts occupied them suf- 
 ficiently, for they realized that it was a day 
 of significance for more than one reason. 
 First and foremost, it definitely established 
 the Wardells as participants in the social 
 life of the village and lifted them out of the 
 mere class of onlookers and transients. And 
 what was of more importance, they had re- 
 fused to recognize distinctions that Dalroy 
 made and had invited every one in town 
 whom they knew. 
 
 117
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "The just and the unjust are asked/* 
 Annie Dee said to Patricia Quincannon, who 
 had come early to help. "And Lena Rys- 
 dael and her father among them. But that 
 was a victory their acceptance ! When I 
 went over there to ask them, my teeth were 
 chattering with fright. But I knocked at the 
 door just as boldly as if I were selling patent 
 iron-handles. 'I have a letter of introduc- 
 tion, Miss Rysdael,' said I, 'from the squir- 
 rels friends of ours. Mother is giving a 
 party in the woods for your old friends, Gor- 
 don and Wylie Curtis, and she wants you to 
 come. She says she's going to have some 
 strawberry jam, and that she's sure it does 
 n't taste a bit scorched/ Well, when I spoke 
 of the strawberry jam, she just wilted. Evi- 
 dently she thought we were such ninnies that 
 we 'd never guess who saved it from destruc- 
 tion that day mother set it over the fire and 
 then walked away and forgot it. She blushed 
 and laughed, and said her father had been 
 talking about what a good time he had with 
 Rue that day she suggested that he should 
 118
 
 THE SOFTENING OF NANCY 
 
 write a book on lichens. 'He's decided to 
 do it,' she said. 'He wrote to some publish- 
 ers, and they thought well of it.' The battle 
 of Rysdael Grove is over!" 
 
 So the Rysdaels, the Curtises, Mrs. Thwait, 
 Patricia Quincannon, John Harmon, Miss 
 Ferris, three clergymen, their wives and 
 young people, Miss Torrey, Delia Sessions, 
 and two-score of their neighbors made their 
 way to the benevolent shade of Borrow's 
 Grove. 
 
 " Is n't it curious," said Patricia to Robert 
 Wardell, "how well people look beneath 
 trees ? Now, there are quite a number of us 
 here who would make anything except an im- 
 posing spectacle if we were, say, on the Grand 
 Staircase of the Paris Opera House ; but here 
 we're very agreeable-looking, indeed." 
 
 "We are," agreed Robert; "at least, some 
 of us are." 
 
 Patricia took the compliment as blithely 
 as a squirrel takes a nut. 
 
 "But there's no one," she observed, "who 
 looks sweeter than Lena Rysdael. See, she's 
 119
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 over there with Mr. Harmon! He told me 
 he 'd like to have a picture painted of her with 
 the birds and the squirrels round her. And 
 it would make a lovely picture, would n't 
 it?" 
 
 " I did n't think I 'd like her," said Robert ; 
 "but I do. Her bark's worse than her bite." 
 
 "Bark!" exclaimed Patricia. "How could 
 she bark?" 
 
 She laughed gayly as she looked toward 
 Lena, who leaned against a spreading birch 
 tree, her face lighted with a happiness that 
 was new to her. 
 
 "She is n't used to people," Patricia com- 
 mented, after regarding her sympathetically. 
 "We haven't been sociable enough to her 
 here in Dalroy." 
 
 "She could have been sociable if she had 
 wanted to, couldn't she?" asked Robert. 
 "It was just as easy for her to go to see you 
 as for you to come to see her." 
 
 "Oh, mercy, no!" Patricia declared. "I'm 
 one of those persons who is always in things. 
 I 'm never left out at least I never feel left 
 
 120
 
 THE SOFTENING OF NANCY 
 
 out. I always have engagements, duties, and 
 diversions. It 's my disposition." 
 
 Robert laughingly admitted it. From 
 whom, he wondered, did she inherit her 
 bright outlook on life, her girlish confidence, 
 her instinct for leadership ? Surely not from 
 that grotesque old man, Captain Quincannon, 
 who, since his setback in the matter of the 
 dam, was drinking harder than ever and mak- 
 ing a place of carousal out of his house-boat ; 
 but perhaps, after all, there was no such 
 thing as an inheritance of mind and soul. 
 Maybe each one came fresh from the hand 
 of the Creator. 
 
 "This certainly does seem like old times 
 to me," Gordon Curtis told Mrs. Wardell. 
 "Wherever I look I see a familiar face. To 
 the best of my recollection and belief you 
 have some hard-fighting clansmen here, but 
 they all seem calm and temporarily under a 
 flag of truce. How did you manage it ?" 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Wardell, laughing, "in 
 many cases I did n't know about the warfare 
 or who was the enemy of whom. That made 
 121
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 it easy for me. In the other cases I accepted 
 the conflict as part of life's activities and in- 
 vited the contestants." 
 
 "Then you don't object to war between 
 neighbors?" 
 
 "It's a sign of life. It seems to me merely 
 to indicate that amusement and achieve- 
 ment are at a low ebb. So long as men and 
 women live and breathe, they must use their 
 energies in some way. They'll prey on one 
 another if they can't find anything else to 
 do. From the vigor of the quarrels here in 
 Dalroy, I should imagine that the people had 
 a good deal of vitality. It would be worth 
 while to direct their energies in the right 
 way, would n't it?" 
 
 "You just bet it would!" cried Gordon 
 impulsively. "I'd like to help do that. I tell 
 you, I 'm attached to this little old town of 
 Dalroy, Mrs. Wardell. Wylie and I have 
 about made up our minds to settle here. 
 We've a little capital to invest, and we want 
 to go into business for ourselves. Wylie 's a 
 great fellow for inventing things, and he's 
 122
 
 THE SOFTENING OF NANCY 
 
 patented a vacuum cleaner that will clean 
 not only carpets and draperies, but books. 
 That 's only one of a dozen of things Wylie 
 has thought of. I'm not up to little tricks 
 like that, but I can make a pretty close 
 estimate of cost production and selling price. 
 I'm afraid you'll think us terribly practical, 
 commonplace fellows." 
 
 "It's commonplace to be impractical," 
 said Mrs. Wardell, with spirit; "but practi- 
 cality is real poetry, to my mind. I like to 
 have people use their abilities, and take what- 
 ever talent they have with gratitude, not 
 wishing for something quite different." 
 
 "Well, Wylie and I have to prove our- 
 selves, of course. We may not strike it quite 
 right at first, but we shall keep busy about 
 something. By the way, we must n't let the 
 picnic drag, must we? It isn't too hot to 
 have some games, is it? Let's think up some 
 good games and get every one to play. It 
 will ease up their minds act as a mental 
 lubricator." 
 
 "And then," said Annie Dee, who had just 
 123
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 come up, " it will be fun to watch the lion 
 and the lamb caper beneath the greenwood 
 tree." 
 
 So, with the laughter and frolic and the 
 singing of songs, and the setting-out of the 
 feast and the eating of it, there was really 
 no chance to remember old grudges. Dalroy 
 ceased to be critical and jealous, and gave 
 itself up to a childlike and care-free mood. 
 
 Finally the cool, bright day waned, as the 
 loveliest day must, and the party, weary with 
 their nonsense and fooling, their tramping 
 and climbing, turned their footsteps home- 
 ward. Their hearts were perceptibly light- 
 ened and warmed. The reaction had been 
 complete. For once nothing hateful or ugly 
 had intruded to mar a Dalroy occasion. 
 
 "It really was my housewarming," Mrs. 
 Wardell explained as she received at her 
 own gate the thanks and farewells of her 
 guests, " but my house was too small to hold 
 all my friends ; so I annexed out-of-doors." 
 
 "It's been one of the happiest days of my 
 life," Lena Rysdael said. "I went to please 
 124
 
 THE SOFTENING OF NANCY 
 
 others, it 's my way to be plain-spoken, 
 but next time I shall go to please myself." 
 
 The guests trooped down the lane among 
 the slanting shadows of the late afternoon, 
 and Mrs. Wardell regarded them with a 
 smile of satisfaction. As she turned, still 
 smiling, toward her house, she saw that John 
 Harmon was lingering on Lena Rysdael's 
 doorstep. 
 
 Mrs. WardelPs own young folk were linger- 
 ing with their friends also. Patricia, Gordon, 
 Wylie, and Delia had seated themselves on 
 the garden benches to watch the sunset. The 
 pleasant sound of their voices floated in to 
 the older woman as she lay on the couch and 
 looked about the pleasant, homely room. 
 
 "I'm not a woman," she said to herself, 
 "to merge my life in that of others not 
 even in the lives of my own children. I want 
 my own life, my own friends, my own activi- 
 ties. Still, there's a certain kind of joy that 
 they must feel for me, and that I must get 
 through them." 
 
 Truly the voices that floated in to her, the 
 125
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 laughter, the snatches of song, were as light 
 as thistledown. Gradually a feeling of lone- 
 liness began to steal over Mrs. Wardell. She 
 tried to tell herself that she had had her 
 youth ; now she must be content with other 
 things. But she was not content, and, rising, 
 she called the young people almost imperi- 
 ously. 
 
 "Light the candles," she said to Rue. 
 "They'll not be too warm, and the old rooms 
 smile in the candlelight. Shall we have sup- 
 per ? Hot tea ? Good. Put the teakettle on, 
 Annie Dee. Robert, there's a joint in the 
 refrigerator that you might slice. No, don't 
 set the table. This is a buffet repast, and 
 I'm going to sit still and be served by all. 
 Yes, every one of you must bring me some- 
 thing." 
 
 Laughing, they flew to do her bidding, and 
 in a few minutes their supper was served. 
 The nest of tables had been divided into its 
 component parts, and each table served for 
 two. It was Delia Sessions who sat with Mrs. 
 Wardell. 
 
 126
 
 THE SOFTENING OF NANCY 
 
 "I ought to have gone straight home from 
 the picnic, ought n't I ?" she said. "But the 
 girls urged me to stay. Oh, it's been such a 
 happy day! Honestly, Mrs. Wardell, my 
 heart felt so light that I could hardly believe 
 it belonged to me." 
 
 She said this under her breath, and in the 
 same low tone Mrs. Wardell murmured : 
 
 "Dear child, I hope this will be the first 
 of many, many such." 
 
 The talk became general, and Delia, con- 
 tent with her happy reverie, did not speak 
 until Rue leaned over her as she passed the 
 cake. Then Delia, looking up, smiled in ad- 
 miration of her friend's comeliness. 
 
 "I love you in a frock like that," she said. 
 "A Dutch neck just suits you. But you 
 ought always to wear your little gold chain ; 
 only perhaps it would n't have been proper 
 to wear that at a picnic?" 
 
 Rue drew in her breath involuntarily, and 
 Mrs. Wardell as involuntarily threw Rue a 
 warning glance. 
 
 "What's this about Rue's necklace?" 
 127
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 asked Patricia gayly. "Is this a jewel mys- 
 tery?" 
 
 "It's been mislaid, that's all," said Annie 
 Dee. "It will turn up somewhere." 
 
 "Well, if you know where you lost it and if 
 it will stay there, that's all right," said Pa- 
 tricia, laughing. 
 
 "It wasn't on the street, then?" asked 
 Gordon. 
 
 "No on my dresser " 
 
 "Your dresser?" 
 
 Delia looked up, startled. 
 
 "The day you went to the wood ?" she de- 
 manded, her eyes widening. "Why, yes, I 
 saw your necklace on the dressing-table that 
 day! I looked at it and put it back." 
 
 "It's a pretty little thing," said Rue, as 
 casually as she could. 
 
 "But you haven't seen it since then?" 
 Delia persisted. 
 
 "Oh, it's fallen down somewhere it was 
 such a little thing!" Rue said cheerfully. 
 
 Delia threw a look of appeal at Mrs. War- 
 dell. 
 
 128
 
 THE SOFTENING OF NANCY 
 
 "It will turn up somewhere," Mrs. War- 
 dell said steadily. " Dear me, the hot tea was 
 just what we all needed, wasn't it? Well, 
 you young people can clear the things 
 away, and I '11 still be Lady Sit-in-the-Chair. 
 Delia, why go home to-night ? Stay with us, 
 and Mr. Curtis will stop at your aunt's as 
 he is going by and let her know. And now 
 for some more music before we part. Patri- 
 cia, my dear, will you play the accompan- 
 iments?" 
 
 They had only Miss Amrah's little old 
 parlor organ, but it suited well the grave, 
 sweet songs that they chose to sing. It was 
 as if they were all trying to bring peace and 
 harmony into that kindly little room, where, 
 for a moment, a wild tumult had stirred 
 perhaps was even now stirring in the heart of 
 the dark, thin girl who, with an air of valiant 
 determination, sang with them, although her 
 voice was a little too shrill, perhaps, and her 
 eyes were a bit too bright. Because of the 
 eyes that were too bright and the voice that 
 was too shrill, Mrs. Wardell kept the girl be- 
 129
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 side her. She knew that to Delia it seemed 
 that life had trapped her trickily, and that 
 try as she might she never could quite free 
 herself.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PROBLEMS 
 
 BREAKFAST was a brisk affair with the 
 Wardells these days, for Robert was always 
 eager in the morning. He seemed like an 
 engine with full steam on, snorting and puff- 
 ing in the station and wild to be off down the 
 track. 
 
 But absorbed as he was in his own affairs, 
 he could not fail to notice on the morning 
 after the picnic the white face of Delia Ses- 
 sions. It had that curious pallor that a dark 
 face alone can have, and with the deep rings 
 beneath the eyes and the pathetic droop of 
 the mouth it would have caught the atten- 
 tion of even a more absorbed person than 
 Robert. He chanced to have a moment alone 
 with her, and with an impulse of comrade- 
 ship he spoke out his sympathy. 
 
 "Things going wrong with you, Delia?" 
 he asked.
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 Unable to speak, she nodded. 
 
 "All because of an old trouble?" 
 
 Again she nodded. 
 
 "Something you can't possibly help- 
 an old, dead trouble dumped on you and 
 smothering you ? " 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 "Then why, in Heaven's name," de- 
 manded Robert, "don't you get away from 
 here? Dalroy isn't giving you anything; 
 that old notion of staying round and living 
 a thing down when a whole community is 
 determined that you shall go into your grave 
 with your trouble still hanging over you 
 does n't appeal to me a little bit. Get out of 
 the place, that 's what I say get out and 
 begin over. A fellow's got to have fresh air 
 and room and a girl needs the same things. 
 This air is n't fresh for you, and they have n't 
 given you room. You talk to mother she 
 '11 help you." 
 
 "Thank you, Robert, I shall, I certainly 
 shall. But, Robert " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 132
 
 PROBLEMS 
 
 "You believe in me?" 
 
 "Of course I do, down to the ground and 
 up to the skies. But you must go where 
 you'll never have to ask that question of 
 any one." 
 
 "But there are obstacles Cousin Jen- 
 ny-" 
 
 "Overcome the obstacles. That's what 
 they're for. Good-bye, Delia." 
 
 The girl waited until he had said good-bye 
 to his family, and then flew to Mrs. Wardell. 
 Her eyes were hot and strained, her mouth 
 was quivering. 
 
 "Now," she said, "you must let me begin 
 to look for the necklace. Oh, just give me 
 permission to look everywhere!" 
 
 She stopped, flaming scarlet. Perhaps 
 Mrs. Wardell would not like to have her pry- 
 ing into everything in the house, she who 
 
 "I can't do that," said Mrs. Wardell 
 gravely. " It reflects on your dignity and on 
 mine. I cannot let a guest whom I trust 
 fight to clear herself of such a suspicion 
 particularly when the suspicion does not 
 133
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 exist. You must n't ask it of me, Delia. 
 Why, the girls would be ashamed to look 
 you in the face!" 
 
 "What am I to do, then?" demanded the 
 girl nervously. "Oh, yes, it would be horrid, 
 would n't it ? A thing no lady like you could 
 allow? But what good does that do me? 
 Here I am, with you wondering about me, - 
 in spite of yourself, you 're wondering about 
 me ! Robert says I ought to go away to some 
 new place, and I must! I must! I can't 
 stand this any longer!" 
 
 She suddenly flung her arms about Mrs. 
 Wardell's neck and broke into passionate 
 tears. Mrs. Wardell had no objection to "a 
 good cry" for an overwrought girl, but this 
 was not "a good cry." It was a tempest of 
 grief and shame. Rue and Annie Dee, hear- 
 ing it, ran into the room, but at a look from 
 their mother stole away again. But before 
 the morning was over, the four of them had 
 found the calmness that was necessary for a 
 frank discussion of Delia's situation. They 
 were all in favor of a change for her.
 
 PROBLEMS 
 
 "A person has no right to stay where 
 she'll be crushed, I can see that," Delia 
 agreed. "To live on here merely because 
 of an idea that I owed it to Cousin Jenny 
 to do so would be a mistake, would n't it ? 
 It would only make us both wretched." 
 
 "The first duty of every person," said Mrs. 
 Wardell, " is to do the finest thing by his own 
 soul. Sometimes that comes through sacri- 
 fice, and sometimes it comes through refus- 
 ing to be sacrificed. In either case, the soul 
 marches on." 
 
 "The only question remaining is, where 
 Delia can march to?" Rue said. 
 
 "Why not to Chicago ?" asked Annie Dee. 
 
 "To do what?" persisted Rue. 
 
 "What can you do, Delia, sing, dance, 
 teach, paint, write, typewrite, keep books, 
 sew " 
 
 "There you arei" Delia interrupted. "I 
 can do embroidering and all kinds of fine 
 hand sewing. It's a talent with me one of 
 the things I inherited." She made a queer 
 little face, half tender, half angry. "And do 
 135
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 you know, only the other day Pat was telling 
 me that Miss Torrey knew of a settlement 
 house in Chicago where they would pay well 
 to have sewing of that sort taught to the 
 girls. Do you suppose she was trying to 
 tempt me to leave Dalroy ? Of course it may 
 be too late for me to get the position." 
 
 "We'll find out all about it," said Mrs. 
 Wardell. "But whether you get the par- 
 ticular position or not, you'll get some- 
 thing. I should like that settlement work for 
 you because it probably would give you a 
 home." 
 
 Rue had her own problems these days. 
 September was at hand, and that meant that 
 she was to take charge of her school. She had 
 decided on the one in Dubuque, Iowa, be- 
 cause it was nearer home than the one offered 
 her in Arizona. 
 
 "I don't want to be a baby," she said to 
 Patricia, "but I certainly do dread leaving 
 home. Here's funny little Annie Dee work- 
 ing away on her poems and actually making 
 136
 
 PROBLEMS 
 
 a good deal of money out of them. She 's been 
 doing a lot for a large advertising agency, and 
 they've paid her well. It seems actually silly 
 to make a living as easily as that, does n't it ? 
 She just goes humming and dancing round 
 the house, working up a rhythm, as she puts 
 it, and the first thing we know she has a 
 bunch of verses finished and in the mail. Did 
 you ever hear of anything so ridiculous?" 
 
 "I never did!" Patricia agreed. "I always 
 said that this was an astounding world. 
 Some odd little talent will get ahead of the 
 solidest worth. In speaking of solid worth I 
 refer, Rue, to the qualities possessed by such 
 persons as you and me. By odd little talents, 
 I mean" and here she raised her voice for 
 the benefit of Annie Dee "such flimsy 
 wits as those by which your unreflecting sis- 
 ter cajoles dollars from the pockets of trust- 
 ing business men." 
 
 Annie Dee's derisive giggle was heard, but 
 she did not permit herself to be drawn into the 
 conversation, for she was at that very mo- 
 ment concocting some verses describing how
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 certain jointed dolls were like your own little 
 sister or your own little brother. Annie Dee's 
 verses were, indeed, very much on her mind. 
 If she awoke early, she seized her pencil and 
 paper, which she always kept beside her bed, 
 and tried experiments in blithe rhythm and 
 amazing rhyme. 
 
 " I 'm the one who must stay at home with 
 mother," she decided, " so it 's up to me to 
 develop home talent." 
 
 She was quite aware of her impulsiveness, 
 and she agreed with her family that home was 
 the place for her. 
 
 "I have to be kept under restraint," she 
 said once to Wylie Curtis. "I shall never 
 leave mother till I can do so in the care of 
 a solemn husband, preferably a deacon, 
 with whom I shall be perfectly miserable, but 
 who will keep me in order." 
 
 "Why not marry a policeman and be done 
 with it?" 
 
 "Policemen are nice," Annie Dee replied 
 with an air of innocent pleasure. "I'm so 
 glad you thought of that!" 
 138
 
 PROBLEMS 
 
 Rue's trunks were all packed, when the un- 
 expected happened. One of the primary 
 teachers in the Dalroy school was engaged 
 to be married to a young man in the imple- 
 ment business ; he was suddenly transferred 
 to Albuquerque and insisted on taking his 
 sweetheart with him. A hasty marriage was 
 the consequence; and Pat fled to the War- 
 dells, carrying the first rumor of it. 
 
 " I never was so delighted to hear of a wed- 
 ding in my life ! And I always like to hear of 
 weddings. Rue, you must put in an applica- 
 tion at once for the vacancy. Then you can 
 stay here with your own fascinating family 
 and your fond friends." 
 
 "Why should the Board of Education give 
 me the place?" demanded Rue. "And if 
 they did, there 's my Iowa job ! It 's too late 
 to throw that up. I wish you had n't upset 
 me, Pat, by telling me about it." 
 
 "Leave it all to me!" Pat cried. 
 
 And surely enough, Patricia was equal to 
 her task. A few telegrams settled the Du- 
 buque matter; and Rue received her permis-
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 sion to take charge of part of the first-grade 
 pupils in the Dalroy school. 
 
 "So unpack your trunks, honey bird," 
 said Annie Dee, "and be happy with us. 
 Are n't we the lucky Wardells ? Of course 
 maybe you can find something to worry 
 about, because you carry round a sort of 
 magnifying glass made for the enlargement 
 of worries, but so far as I can see with my 
 two naked eyes there is n't a cloud on the 
 Wardell destiny." 
 
 Then, after a moment, she added : 
 
 "The Curtis boys have just about de- 
 cided to stay in Dalroy." 
 
 Rue neglected to give the ironic chuckle 
 that might have been expected to follow that 
 remark. 
 
 Trouble, however, as a great many have 
 observed, is quick to follow upon just such 
 vainglorious boasting; and the trouble that 
 came, unexpectedly as an earthquake, not 
 only shook the contentment of the Wardells 
 to its foundation, but brought catastrophe to 
 others. 
 
 140
 
 PROBLEMS 
 
 The season had been an unusually rainy 
 one, and a number of small floods caused by 
 cloudbursts and long continuous rains had 
 hindered work upon the dam. For one reason 
 and another the river carried a great deal of 
 drift, and this had on several occasions made 
 such a conglomerate mass at the sluices that 
 the vents had been almost completely closed. 
 The water had risen at such a rate as to 
 threaten the green concrete work. 
 
 However, the difficulty was not regarded 
 as serious until a heavy rain stopped work on 
 the dam for three days. Robert's thought 
 early and late had been for the sluices, and 
 his men had worked like Trojans to keep 
 them clear; but in spite of their efforts they 
 had failed. Both Robert and Mr. Harmon 
 trembled for their still unhardened cement. 
 
 The rising waters began to inundate the 
 low lands that Captain Quincannon had 
 owned, and the sight of the flooded land 
 exasperated him as much as if they were still 
 his own. 
 
 The money that he had received for the 
 141
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 land from Mr. Harmon he had already spent 
 in wild and riotous nights with his boon com- 
 panions, and there were hours when he per- 
 suaded himself that he never had been paid 
 anything for his property. At such moments, 
 breaking into wild eloquence, he explained to 
 whoever would listen that the valuable land 
 had been wrested from him by a tyrant. 
 
 Dalroy was now amused and now annoyed 
 at those outbreaks. Quincannon, they all 
 agreed, had long been looking for a grievance, 
 and was delighted at having found one at last. 
 
 Robert, jaded with a long and anxious 
 day, caught a glimpse of the haggard old 
 riverman watching the rising waters from 
 the height above the dam. The old man 
 frowned from under his shaggy gray brows 
 at the young engineer, who nodded absent- 
 mindedly and strode on toward home. 
 
 A violent wind had risen during the after- 
 noon and dark clouds, with saffron-hued 
 edges, had gathered in the west. 
 
 "Another rainfall is coming," said Robert 
 to Mr. Harmon, whom he had overtaken on 
 142
 
 PROBLEMS 
 
 the street, "and it won't be safe for the men 
 to work on the dam." 
 
 "The whole trouble seems superfluous to 
 me," said John Harmon testily. 
 
 "Well, we could n't keep the rain off, 
 could we? Floods don't usually come until 
 later in the month; but they're here, and I 
 don't see how any one can be blamed." 
 
 "They can be blamed for not keeping the 
 sluices clear." 
 
 "Don't you think we've tried?" Robert 
 asked. "The men have been at it all day." 
 
 The two walked on in silence. 
 
 "Oh, hang it!" said Mr. Harmon at last. 
 " I feel as cross as a bear with a sore head ! 
 I know you've done your best, Bob." 
 
 "I'm going back to the works after sup- 
 per," said Robert. "Come up to supper with 
 me and we'll talk things over. A dozen of 
 the men are going to meet me on the bank at 
 about seven with something they've rigged 
 up with chains and hooks. I believe we'll 
 have the sluices cleared by midnight." 
 
 "If only the rain will hold off, I dare say
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 we'll be all right," said Mr. Harmon; "but 
 it certainly does look threatening, Bobbie." 
 
 There was always welcome and comfort to 
 be found at the Wardell Cottage, it seemed. 
 Mrs. Wardell had a delicious supper, and 
 Rue and Annie Dee served it with quiet 
 cheerfulness, quite aware that this was not 
 the hour for idle chatter. 
 
 At sunset the air was lighted with a won- 
 derful glow, made all the more remarkable 
 by the black cloud that hung over the 
 zenith and that moved very slowly toward 
 the east. 
 
 An indescribable feeling of apprehension 
 crept upon the group round the supper table, 
 and when the telephone bell rang sharply, 
 all sprang to their feet. It was Robert who 
 answered the call, and the others heard him 
 say: "Is it you, Patricia? I can't hear the 
 connection seems so bad. Can't you speak 
 louder?" 
 
 He listened a moment, and then, dropping 
 the receiver, turned to his family. 
 
 "There's something the matter," he said 
 144
 
 PROBLEMS 
 
 shortly. " Patricia seems to want me, but I 
 could n't make out where she was." 
 
 "At home, I should suppose, on a day like 
 this," said Rue. 
 
 " Somehow, I don't think she is. I 'm going 
 to find her. The wires are all knocked out 
 to-day; I wonder she got us at all." 
 
 "But ought you to go out, Robert?" 
 asked his mother anxiously. "I feel as if 
 something were going to happen. I never saw 
 a stranger day." 
 
 "I've got to go, mother," Robert cried. 
 " Pat needs me there's something wrong." 
 
 He had been gone fifteen minutes, perhaps, 
 and they had not yet lighted the lamps, when 
 there came a convulsion of earth and air that 
 rocked the house and sucked at the win- 
 dows as if it would have drawn them out. For 
 a moment the Wardells and their guest 
 gasped; then Mrs. Wardell cried: 
 
 "Robert!" 
 
 "Why Robert?" demanded Rue. 
 
 "The dam!" Mrs. Wardell managed to 
 articulate. 
 
 145
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "Of course!" shouted John Harmon. "It's 
 the dam! That's what Pat was trying to 
 say something was being done to the 
 dam!" 
 
 He was off without his hat, running 
 through that strange saffron-hued gloom. 
 
 "Oh, mother, we can't stay here!" cried 
 Annie Dee. "We must go, too." 
 
 Yes, decidedly, they must go; and every 
 one in Dalroy, they soon found, was going. 
 In the wild, yellow-hued dusk they panted 
 along the streets ; all faces were turned river- 
 ward. The young doctor sped past with his 
 medicine case in his hand; the sheriff ran 
 down the middle of the street, followed by 
 a rout of boys; and along the sidewalks 
 streamed the men and women, anxious, 
 curious, frightened. It had begun to thunder 
 ominously, but no one heeded that until a 
 terrific crash, heralded by a spectacular flash 
 of lightning, emptied the black cloud of its 
 contents. In a moment a deluge of water 
 was upon them, and all except the most 
 determined were driven to shelter. 
 146
 
 PROBLEMS 
 
 Robert had raced townward, borne on by 
 the conviction that somewhere Patricia was 
 in distress and had called him. He did not 
 think she was at home, yet against his in- 
 stinct he went there. The Thwait house was 
 dark except for a light at the far end of the 
 wide hallway, and it seemed to him that his 
 summons would never be answered. It never 
 was, in fact, for while he stood on the door- 
 step there came the shock of earth and air 
 that sent all the town from its doors. Robert 
 called loudly for Patricia, and from some- 
 where in the house the voice of the cook 
 wailed : 
 
 "No, no, Miss Patricia ain't here! I don't 
 know where she is, and what does it matter 
 if it 's the end of the world that 's come ?" 
 
 Robert answered incoherently, for an idea 
 had flashed into his mind. His dam! His 
 fine, effective, workmanlike dam, the first 
 large achievement of his skill ruined ! He 
 felt sure of it. And Patricia? Where was 
 she? What could she have to do with the 
 dam and the destruction of it ? Yet her voice, 
 H7
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 so faint and broken, so distressed and frantic ! 
 With his heart pounding at his side, Robert 
 sped on, outdistancing all the others. 
 
 "There he goes!" the people said to one 
 another. "That's Wardell! I guess he won't 
 find much of his dam left to look at." 
 
 That great flash of lightning showed 
 Robert the Curtis boys, running close upon 
 his heels, and the sight of them, so loyal, so 
 efficient, so daring, comforted him. 
 
 A second more and the cloud seemed to 
 empty itself upon them; but Robert knew 
 that those two would not turn back. He was 
 aware that they were near him as he stood for 
 a moment upon the bank and, through the 
 curtain of rain, discerned the rushing waters 
 and heard the roar that confirmed his worst 
 fears for the dam. But Pat Pat Pat! 
 Where was she ? She had been there had 
 wished to warn him! An idea seized upon 
 Robert and became a conviction. The cabin, 
 farther downstream than the dam, stood in 
 the very sweep of the flood. 
 
 Robert shouted to the brothers, "I'm 
 148
 
 PROBLEMS 
 
 going to the captain's cabin! I'm afraid 
 there's trouble there!" and dashed away. 
 
 The others paused for a moment to speak 
 to Mr. Harmon, who had come running up. 
 They saw Mrs. Wardell and her daughter 
 and implored them to go back. 
 
 "What good can you do here?" they de- 
 manded of the women. 
 
 "Where's Robert?" Rue cried. 
 
 Where was Robert, indeed ? He had raced 
 along the bank as far as the Quincannon 
 cabin, had crossed the little bridge, mounted 
 the shaking stairs and for the first time stood 
 in the shiplike interior of the riverman's 
 house. Every pane of glass in the windows 
 had been shattered by the explosion and the 
 rain was beating in from the west. 
 
 A booming sound warned him that the 
 break in the dam was widening; indeed, the 
 house, already loosened from its foundations 
 by the explosion, began to slip along its 
 piles. 
 
 "It's going!" shouted Robert. "Pat! Pat! 
 Are you here?" 
 
 149
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 He pushed past the cluttered furniture 
 into the farther room, and stumbled against 
 something that lay across a lounge. Was it 
 Captain Quincannon, stunned by the explo- 
 sion ? No, Robert knew that slender form - 
 knew that great fall of loosened dark hair. 
 At that moment she seemed to Robert to be- 
 long to no one except himself. She was his 
 Pat his daring, loyal Pat, come somehow 
 to terrible grief. 
 
 The house rocked sickeningly. There were 
 only seconds to be reckoned with. Robert 
 lifted the unconscious girl and bore her to the 
 outer door, which had swung to. Resting his 
 burden against the wall, he tried desperately 
 with one hand to open it. It would not open. 
 
 Suddenly there came to him that calmness 
 that lies at the heart of terror. He laid 
 Patricia carefully on the floor and tried the 
 door with both hands. 
 
 "It opened inward," he said aloud quietly. 
 "I remember it opened inward/' 
 
 With that, he ran his hands along the upper 
 casing. Sure enough, the trouble lay there. 
 150
 
 PROBLEMS 
 
 The casing, wrenched from its joining, sagged 
 over the door. Tearing his hands on the 
 nails, Robert rent it loose. At last he was 
 free. 
 
 But the way was no longer clear; part of 
 the bridge was gone. It was the second for 
 action even if unavailing ; but all his pur- 
 poseful life and eager manhood would have 
 gone for nothing if he had not taken his 
 chance. Gathering Patricia close, he leaped 
 shoreward amid the wash of the racing river 
 and the tumult of the downpouring rain.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE QUINCANNONS 
 
 THE larger part of the crowd had gathered 
 farther upstream, yet many people saw the 
 cabin swing loose from its foundations and 
 the dark figures leap into the water. Several 
 men, Gordon and Wylie Curtis among them, 
 sprang to the river-bank, ready to do what 
 they could. 
 
 Of all the crowd, only the Curtis brothers 
 knew positively that one of those figures was 
 Robert's and guessed that the other was 
 Patricia's. While the rescuers stood, hesitat- 
 ing, uncertain how to help, Gordon Curtis 
 had an inspiration. Kicking off his low shoes 
 and flinging his coat from him, he leaped 
 down the bank, ran up the river to the first of 
 the piers, and loosed a stanch, narrow raft 
 made of two beams bound together with ropes. 
 All he needed was an oar, and as he looked 
 about him Wylie thrust one into his hand. 
 152
 
 THE QUINCANNONS 
 
 Above the roar of waters he heard other 
 noises voices cheering him on, other voices 
 begging him not to go ; but he paid no atten- 
 tion to them. He mounted his raft as you 
 would mount a steed and, letting it lift with 
 the current, shot down the river. The rush- 
 ing water carried him swiftly among the piles 
 on which had rested the Quincannon cabin. 
 There it seemed that he certainly would be 
 unseated ; but steering skillfully with his oar, 
 he managed to get free of the piers. Outward 
 he sped, seeming almost to fly along the sur- 
 face of the dark waters, until presently he 
 overtook Robert and Patricia. 
 
 Robert held the girl with his left arm, and 
 with his right hand clung desperately to the 
 prow of a little skiff, which threatened each 
 moment to break its moorings. 
 
 Gordon had come upon Robert and Pa- 
 tricia much sooner than he expected, and too 
 late he realized that he would probably shoot 
 by them. He dug his oar viciously into the 
 water in a vain effort to stop himself; then, 
 just as he was going by, he clutched with one 
 '53
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 hand at the skiff. The added strain was too 
 much for the fastenings of the boat. They 
 broke, and Robert, still keeping fast hold of 
 Patricia, was submerged by a dark, white- 
 tipped wave. 
 
 Had Gordon's craft been capable of cap- 
 sizing, he could never have done what he did ; 
 but as it was, on the instant that Robert 
 emerged from beneath the wave he grasped 
 him by the arm, and half dragging him, half 
 swinging the raft, brought them together. 
 
 " Hang on ! " he roared. " Hang on, Bob ! " 
 
 Instinctively Robert did as Gordon or- 
 dered. As for his hold of Patricia, he had 
 not for a moment relaxed it. 
 
 The raft was not riding so well now. It 
 staggered, lurched, sidled, while Gordon, 
 working desperately with his one oar, labored 
 toward the bank. He had a confused impres- 
 sion that a crowd was running along the 
 shore, cheering him with its shouts and watch- 
 ing for a chance to help him. And the chance 
 came ! It was a fleeting one, indeed, and had 
 to be seized as the craft shot past the end of 
 i54
 
 THE QUINCANNONS 
 
 a short pier, which itself was in danger of 
 being swept away ; but by lying flat and reach- 
 ing down the men hoped to grasp the raft 
 and hold it. Meanwhile, other men farther 
 down the stream ran into the water and made 
 a living chain of themselves in order to catch 
 the bodies should any be hurled from the 
 raft. 
 
 No one was ever quite sure what hap- 
 pened next; certainly no two ever told the 
 same story. With a boat-hook the men on 
 the pier held Gordon's raft for one second, 
 while Gordon, aiding their efforts, swung it 
 shoreward. A moment later a dozen hands 
 grasped it and hung to it. The little pier 
 began to break now under the hammering of 
 the waves and the weight of the men, but it 
 held for a few precious moments; and then 
 the men who had made a living catch-net of 
 themselves began to close in, and presently 
 all were safe on shore. 
 
 Rue, standing drenched on the bank, saw 
 Gordon come walking toward her. The rain 
 had suddenly ceased, and the high arc-lights, 
 155
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 swinging on their cables, lighted up the 
 thronged embankment. 
 
 "How wonderful you have been!" she 
 cried. "Oh, Gordon, is Bob all right? And 
 Pat?" 
 
 "Bob's fit as a fiddle!" he cried joyously. 
 "Wasn't that a glorious fight he put up? 
 Only went under once, and took that like a 
 fish. Only Pat I'm not so sure!" 
 
 "You don't mean she's " 
 
 "There's the doctor! We'll go and stand 
 near," said Gordon. "I think it's the shock 
 she is suffering from, not drowning." 
 
 " I Ve got to go to her, Gordon ! " Rue cried 
 with sudden decision, and sped from him to 
 where Patricia lay on the bank. 
 
 All about her were her neighbors, moved 
 to speechlessness by the tragic sight before 
 them. Rue turned sick as she watched the 
 young doctor working feverishly over Pa- 
 tricia, and sank weakly down on the bank. 
 A dark reverie fell upon her until, after a 
 while, the whir of a motor roused her. 
 
 "But I can't go home," she heard her 
 156
 
 THE QUINCANNONS 
 
 brother saying, "until I know how Miss 
 Quincannon is. I Ve a right to know, have 
 n't I?" 
 
 "You bet you have!" said the hearty 
 voice of John Harmon. "You worked hard 
 enough to save her, Bob. Let him stay, 
 boys." 
 
 Just then Annie Dee dashed up. "She's 
 all right! She's all right! The doctor says 
 she 's coming to. Oh, are n't you thankful ? 
 Bobbie, Bobbie, I 'm so glad I 'm related to 
 you!" 
 
 "Then get in here with me," said her 
 brother, holding out his trembling hand to 
 her. " Mother's going to stay with Patricia. 
 Mrs. Thwait is away, and mother will stay 
 all night. Rue, are n't you coming home, 
 too?" 
 
 "I don't know," said Rue vaguely. "I 
 think, perhaps, that I'd rather wait here 
 with mother and see Patricia safe home." 
 
 She did not know why she felt such an over- 
 whelming desire to see Patricia safe away 
 from that place of gray waters and protected
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 from other, darker dangers. She could not 
 have said what those dangers were, but as 
 she had sat thinking there on the bank, cer- 
 tain terrible surmises had forced themselves 
 upon her. 
 
 Why had the dam been blown up ? Who 
 could have profited by its destruction ? Obvi- 
 ously, no one. Then it had been destroyed by 
 some one who had a grudge against the dam 
 and the builder of it. And who could have 
 any such grudge except Captain Quincan- 
 non ? He had been dissatisfied with the price 
 paid for his lands, and in his drunken resent- 
 ment had seemed to forget or ignore the fact 
 that they were not still his. 
 
 The more Rue thought, the more convinced 
 she became that Captain Quincannon had 
 blown up the dam. Word of his intention 
 must have reached Patricia, and she had 
 sped to the house-boat to prevent him; she 
 had found him gone, and had telephoned to 
 Robert in the hope, no doubt, that he could 
 do what she could not. Then the explosion 
 had knocked her insensible. As for Captain 
 158
 
 THE QUINCANNONS 
 
 Quincannon, where was he? That was the 
 question that many would presently be ask- 
 ing the bluff sheriff and John Harmon, 
 and all those citizens who represented law 
 and order. 
 
 Even at that minute she could see the 
 sheriff talking to a group of men of whom 
 John Harmon was one. Harmon was kind, 
 but he was not meek. He would try to pun- 
 ish the man who had wantonly destroyed 
 thousands of dollars' worth of property and 
 who had set back his plans for months, per- 
 haps upset them entirely. 
 
 They were putting Patricia into an auto- 
 mobile now, and Mrs. Wardell was getting 
 in beside her. 
 
 "May I come, too, mother?" Rue asked. 
 " It seems as if I had to see Pat all comfort- 
 able and safe in her own bed. Oh, I'll never 
 be able to forget how she looked!" 
 
 Mrs. Wardell turned to smile reassuringly 
 into her daughter's pale face. "You shall see 
 her to-morrow," she said quietly. "Go home 
 now with your brother. He may need you."
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 Something in the tone seemed to carry 
 rebuke, and Rue flushed. The automobile 
 with Robert and Annie Dee in it had already 
 left; so without a word Rue turned and 
 trudged through the town, avoiding the 
 main streets and desiring only to reach her 
 home and put her weary head on her pillow. 
 Gordon Curtis would have been watching 
 for her, she knew, had not he too been taken 
 home. 
 
 Lights were shining through the cottage 
 windows when she reached home, and she 
 could hear the voices of Bob and Annie Dee 
 within. 
 
 " I hope to Heaven," she heard her brother 
 saying fervently, "that, if he's the man who 
 did it, he's gone down with the flood and 
 been drowned ; for if he 's living, and I know 
 anything about John Harmon, he'll go to the 
 penitentiary as sure as fate." 
 
 "Oh, it would kill Pat, it would kill her!" 
 
 "See here, sis," Robert went on. "You 
 stick by Pat, will you ? I want you to do me 
 the greatest favor you ever did. I want you 
 1 60
 
 THE QUINCANNONS 
 
 to pick Pat out of all the world to be your 
 friend. I don't know what she thinks of me, 
 or whether I'm the person she'd choose to 
 stand by her at a time like this, but I'm 
 going to do it anyway, and I want you to 
 help." 
 
 "Oh, you may be sure of that!" Annie Dee 
 answered. "Anyway, I'd be standing by on 
 my own account ! I like being a friend twice 
 as much when there 's something to do." 
 
 " I wish I could say things the way Annie 
 Dee does," thought Rue. 
 
 She entered the room softly, burdened with 
 sorrows, and went on to Robert's room to 
 make his bed ready for him. Then she brought 
 him a bowl of bread and milk. 
 
 "You'll need this," she said softly, "after 
 all your * your adventures." 
 
 She did not quite get out the last words. 
 The menace and anguish of the night had 
 been too much for her, and tears came in a 
 gush, with sobs that shook her to the center of 
 her being. The others comforted and scolded 
 her, and Rue crept to her bed at last, hu- 
 161
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 miliated and chastened. She had meant to 
 be a help and she had only been a trouble, 
 after all. 
 
 "Oh, Annie Dee," she cried when the two 
 were in their outdoor cots with the soft 
 night about them, " don't go back on me, will 
 you?" 
 
 "Why in the name of the sacred gods of 
 Egypt should I go back on my own sister?" 
 
 "I'm such a dub! I can't act at the right 
 moment, I can't say the things I think, and 
 I 'm always getting in the way." 
 
 "What's the use of thinking about your- 
 self when there are so many other things to 
 think about?" demanded Annie Dee. "You 
 5 re always trying to do right, Rue, and then 
 wondering whether you have. Don't stop to 
 think! Rip ahead and do the first thing that 
 comes to you. You can repent afterwards if 
 necessary. It's no trouble to repent. I put in 
 half my time doing it. The only things that 
 are the matter with you, darling sis, are hesi- 
 tation, meditation, introspection, and sancti- 
 fication." 
 
 162
 
 THE QUINCANNONS 
 
 Rue laughed beneath her bedclothes. "I 
 guess you're right, Annie Dee. I'll try to 
 remember. Write it out for me in the morn- 
 ing and I '11 pin it above my dresser." 
 
 "No, you won't!" protested Annie Dee. 
 " For if you do, I '11 keep thinking that those 
 are my faults and I '11 be avoiding them. It 
 would n't do at all to get mixed up like that." 
 . "And what are your faults, Mr. Bones?" 
 
 " Precipitation, acceleration, flirtation, and 
 desperation." 
 
 Rue chuckled appreciatively, and Annie 
 Dee, satisfied that her sister's storm of un- 
 happiness had passed, laid her soft cheek upon 
 her folded hands and slid, rather than sank, 
 into the gray regions of sleep. But Rue lay 
 awake half the night, anxious for many 
 things. She was glad when the morning came 
 and she could be up and about the affairs of 
 the house. It was almost noon before Mrs. 
 Wardell returned. 
 
 "I waited till Mrs. Thwait came home 
 from the city," she explained, "for I could 
 n't think of leaving Patricia alone. She is 
 163
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 suffering terribly ! I had forgotten that the 
 young could suffer like that." 
 
 "Then it was her father who blew up the 
 dam!" cried Rue. 
 
 " She does n't say so, poor child, but she 
 knows it. Some word was brought her, I feel 
 sure, by one of her father's old pals, and she 
 ran frantically to her father's cabin, hoping 
 to stop him. She reached there just as the 
 explosion occurred. Even though she realizes 
 that others must know the truth, she has her 
 mind made up to say nothing. She never 
 once mentioned her father never once 
 wondered where he was. The only thing she 
 said was, 'A man in his right senses would 
 n't do a thing like that, would he?' And of 
 course I said no." 
 
 "Oh, how wise you are, mother!" Rue 
 said. "I thought that all out last night for 
 myself. He was n't thinking right, was he ? 
 It was all a sort of blunder a terrible mis- 
 take." 
 
 "Yes, daughter. By the way, I'll never 
 call Dalroy a mean little town again." 
 164
 
 THE QUINCANNONS 
 
 "I should think this was the very time 
 you would be doing it, after what happened 
 last night." 
 
 "The town itself had no more to do with 
 that deed than you or I did. This morning 
 every one is gathering round Mr. Harmon 
 offering to help him. Half a dozen of them 
 have offered to lend him money to get back on 
 his feet again. I saw Robert and John on the 
 street, and they are coming here for luncheon. 
 Have you marketed yet, Rue?" 
 
 "She's done everything," Annie Dee put 
 in. "I've tried to prove myself worthy by 
 attending to something, but she got ahead of 
 me every time; so I just gave up and took to 
 reading the magazines. Ought n't we to visit 
 Patricia this afternoon, mother?" 
 
 "We'll talk of that later. Here come the 
 men. I '11 change my dress and see to lunch- 
 eon if you girls will set the table." 
 
 "No," they heard John Harmon saying, as 
 he and Robert approached the house, "I 
 don't intend to have any one call me a quit- 
 ter. I 'm here to stay, and I 'm going to build 
 165
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 and run a furniture factory. You can start 
 on the dam just as soon as you please, my 
 boy." 
 
 "Good for you !" cried Annie Dee, running 
 to the door to welcome him. "I knew you 
 were of the Phoenix variety of bird, Mr. Har- 
 
 mon." 
 
 "Well, it did seem rather like a knock-out 
 blow last night, I confess, but I 'm a man who 
 rebounds quickly. Besides, the Curtis boys 
 want to go in with me, and they stand ready 
 to put up ten thousand dollars this minute. 
 They've been looking round for some open- 
 ing, and this seems to strike them just 
 right." 
 
 "And will you be safe from now on ? " ques- 
 tioned Rue. "You have enemies ' 
 
 "I'll attend to the enemies," said John 
 Harmon with determination. "Our sheriff 
 is doing his best to ferret out evidence, and I 
 Ve sent to Chicago for a couple of detectives. 
 I 'm pretty sure who did the work, but I want 
 definite proof. When I get it, I'll give the 
 perpetrator or perpetrators a chance 
 1 66
 
 THE QUINCANNONS 
 
 to see how solitude will act on the disposi- 
 tion." 
 
 Robert Wardell turned, straightened, and 
 looked his companion in the eye with a 
 strange resentment. 
 
 " Harmon ! " he gasped. " Patricia's father !" 
 
 " I can't help whose father he is. He 's got 
 to take his punishment. It will do me good 
 to see him in the penitentiary." 
 
 "Oh, it would n't, it would n't!" Rue pro- 
 tested. "You think so now, but you'd hate 
 it when the time came. To be out in the free 
 air, working and enjoying yourself, and to 
 know that you'd put a man behind bars " 
 
 Harmon broke in with a short laugh. 
 
 "And you'd want him to be out merrily 
 blowing up dams and committing other dep- 
 redations, I suppose! What kind of senti- 
 mentalist do you take me for, Miss Rue? 
 I'm a man of good-will, I hope, but I 'm not 
 a fool." 
 
 "Bob, where are you going?" Rue de- 
 manded, seeing her brother snatch up his hat 
 again. " What 's the matter ? " 
 167
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 Robert Wardell looked round the group 
 with flashing eyes, as he paused for a mo- 
 ment on the threshold of the outer door. 
 
 " I 'm going to see Patricia Quincannon," 
 he said. "I 'm going to ask her to marry me. 
 I want every one in the country to know that 
 we 're engaged to be married." 
 
 He saw his mother standing with a white 
 face in the doorway, and looked at her ap- 
 pealingly. Answering his look, her face broke 
 into a beautiful smile. 
 
 "You're going to be a sword and a shield 
 for her," Mrs. Wardell said quietly. 
 
 John Harmon stood and watched Robert 
 striding down the path. "Have I made an 
 enemy of him?" he asked in distress, turning 
 to his hostess. 
 
 " If you are sure you are doing right, that 
 should not matter," she said smilingly. "1 
 should think that you were superhuman if 
 you did n't resent the destruction of your 
 dam ; and I should think that Bobbie was a 
 very poor lover if he did not fly to his lady in 
 the hour of her humiliation. Life is a tangled 
 168
 
 THE QUINCANNONS 
 
 skein, Mr. Harmon; but let's all believe in 
 each other." 
 
 "That's it!" cried Annie Dee. "Let's 
 all believe in each other. Oh, I believe in 
 every one! I believe in Captain Quincan- 
 non!" She looked at John Harmon with 
 bright defiance. " Patricia's mother believed 
 in him, and they say she was a dear. Just ask 
 Lena Rysdael about her, Mr. Harmon. 
 She'll tell you what a dear Patricia's mother 
 was."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE HARVEST MOON 
 
 ON a cool Sunday afternoon almost a week 
 later, the Wardells, sitting beneath the eaves 
 of their cottage in just the right mind for re- 
 ceiving company, were pleased to see John 
 Harmon coming through the gate. He cast, it 
 is true, rather a longing glance toward the 
 Rysdael Grove; but it was not in him to 
 fail in deference to Mrs. Wardell, who had 
 brought a motherly graciousness into his 
 lonely and matter-of-fact life. 
 
 "Work for every one next week," he began 
 in his brisk manner. "Harmon, Curtis & 
 Curtis begin rebuilding their dam first thing 
 Monday morning. How does that suit you, 
 Mr. Engineer?" 
 
 "Fine, fine," said Robert. "You could n't 
 bring me better news." 
 
 "The Greeks are merry as grigs. I've just 
 been telling them the news, and I left them 
 whirling round in each other's arms." 
 170
 
 THE HARVEST MOON 
 
 "What are grigs?" asked Annie Dee. 
 "And why are they merry?" 
 
 "The phrase," said Rue gravely, "has 
 been brought back to its original meaning by 
 Mr. Harmon. It is probably a corruption of 
 'as merry as a Greek/ but most persons use 
 it as being 'as merry as a grasshopper or 
 a cricket/ grasshoppers and crickets being 
 'grigs/ or little creatures." 
 
 John Harmon sank into a chair with an 
 expression of dismay upon his face. 
 
 "Every little while, Miss Rue, you sim- 
 ply bowl me over with your learning. By the 
 way, does n't school open to-morrow ? And 
 you become one of the notable staff of teach- 
 ers at the Dalroy school?" 
 
 "Yes," said Rue, still grave. "I do hope 
 I succeed. I mean to put my whole soul 
 into it." 
 
 "Isn't she delicious?" demanded Annie 
 Dee. "If she were making jelly, she'd put 
 her whole soul into it just the same." 
 
 "Do you mind walking down the lane a 
 few steps with me, ma'am?" John Harmon 
 171
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 said to Mrs. Wardell. "There's something I 
 want to talk over with you." 
 
 Annie Dee dropped one eyelid, but only 
 Rue saw her. 
 
 "He thinks he's going to tell a great secret 
 to mother," Robert said when Mrs. Wardell 
 and Mr. Harmon had passed from hearing. 
 He looked sympathetically after his friend. 
 
 "It's a great piece of news I have to tell 
 you," Harmon was saying. "One of the rea- 
 sons that I 'm so glad about not being beaten 
 is that I 'm going to be married." 
 
 "Oh, how beautiful!" cried Mrs. Wardell 
 with a good imitation of astonishment. "I 
 had such a happy married life myself that I 
 love to hear of others entering upon the same 
 experience. Does does the lady live in Dal- 
 roy?" 
 
 Mrs. Wardell was as near being a hypo- 
 crite at that moment as she had ever been in 
 her life. 
 
 "You bet she does!" answered John Har- 
 mon boyishly. " Please look over there." 
 
 They were opposite the Rysdael gate, and 
 172
 
 THE HARVEST MOON 
 
 down the long avenue they could see the 
 house with its quaint old doorway and the 
 slender mistress feeding her pets, the squir- 
 rels. 
 
 "Who should she be," Harmon went on, 
 "but the sweetest, most modest, most old- 
 fashioned girl left in the world?" 
 
 " She is lovely," Mrs. Wardell said heartily, 
 " but she has the sort of loveliness that I was 
 afraid no man would appreciate. She will 
 be as loyal as a wife as she has been as a 
 daughter." 
 
 "You could n't say more than that, could 
 you?" John Harmon replied proudly. "I 
 think you can understand why I mean to 
 stick right here in Dalroy in spite of every- 
 thing. I could n't bear to have her think me 
 a quitter." 
 
 Mrs. Wardell felt her own step grow light 
 with happiness as the two of them made 
 their way back to the house, and it was with 
 a shock that she saw Patricia Quincannon, 
 white-faced and strangely tragic, standing by 
 the door. Rue had her arm round her, and
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 Annie Dee and Robert were before her; all, 
 it seemed, were deeply moved. 
 
 "It's something about her father, I fear. 
 Oh, John Harmon, because of your own 
 great happiness, be merciful ! " Mrs. Wardell 
 pleaded. 
 
 She gave him no time to answer, but 
 hastened to join the group by the door. 
 
 "They've found father!" the girl cried, 
 stretching out both hands to the woman who 
 already seemed almost like a mother to her. 
 
 "Found him?" 
 
 "Oh, I mean that they found his body 
 twenty miles down the river in in a weir! 
 Oh, poor dad!" 
 
 She did not weep, but turned her hot eyes 
 from one to another of those about her, seek- 
 ing not so much for sympathy as for some 
 gleam of regret for the taking-off of her 
 father. She wanted appreciation of him, and 
 Annie Dee saw it. 
 
 "What a cruel way for such a great, hand- 
 some man to be found," she said. 
 
 "Oh, Pat," murmured Rue, searching for
 
 THE HARVEST MOON 
 
 some words of sincere sympathy, "don't 
 think of him as suffering ! I 'm sure it must 
 have been all over in a minute. He could n't 
 have known " 
 
 The words brought up the picture of the 
 drunken dynamiter, the man with hate and 
 destruction in his heart, the creature whom 
 none could respect. But Pat did not flinch. 
 
 "He was a criminal," she said slowly, " and 
 a hunted man, but I loved him in spite of all ; 
 but perhaps you can't understand that." 
 
 " Pat, dear," cried Annie Dee, "why should 
 n't we understand?" 
 
 John Harmon did not wince beneath the 
 girl's level gaze, although he realized poign- 
 antly that it was he who would have 
 "hunted" the man to his doom. 
 
 "It's best as it is, Miss Patricia," he said. 
 "He can't belie himself any more, and I take 
 it that is what he was doing of late years. 
 Every one tells me he was a fine man in his 
 younger days. Yes, it 's best as it is God 
 rest his soul." 
 
 "God rest his soul," repeated Patricia.
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 The words seemed to comfort her. She held 
 out her hand to John Harmon, and he took it 
 in both his own. 
 
 Then suddenly she turned toward Robert. 
 
 "Of course," she said swiftly, "I can't let 
 our engagement go on, Robert. You know 
 what the name of Quincannon will mean after 
 this. I talk a great deal about each one's 
 standing on his own personal merits, but no 
 one can get away from his family, after all. 
 Oh, Mrs. Wardell, I never really meant to 
 drag Bob into all this, but when he came to 
 me, when I was so desolate, oh, so lonely 
 and desolate, I let him comfort me ! I 'm 
 stronger now and " 
 
 "Hush, Pat, hush!" said Robert sternly. 
 "We are never going to part. Why, you be- 
 long to us completely! It isn't I alone who 
 feel that way; mother and the girls " 
 
 "You are my daughter," said Mrs. War- 
 dell gently, and drew the girl to her. 
 
 And Robert added softly, "To-morrow, 
 mother and you and I, Patricia, will go 
 where your father is." 
 176
 
 THE HARVEST MOON 
 
 John Harmon strolled to the Rysdael 
 Woods, and they saw Lena, tall and delicate 
 in her white gown, coming to meet him ; then 
 Robert and Patricia strolled to the woods; 
 and after a time Gordon and Wylie Curtis 
 came, and, with Rue and Annie Dee, fol- 
 lowed the lovers. Mrs. Wardell was left alone 
 in the silent house. 
 
 "It certainly is the crown of the year," 
 Rue said as they tramped over the sweet- 
 smelling grasses. "If I were in Lena Rys- 
 dael's place, I should want to be married now, 
 in the fall. October's the best month of all 
 for a bride like her, whose good deeds have 
 borne fruit." 
 
 "I hope," said Annie Dee, "that we shall 
 be asked to be bridesmaids. Being a brides- 
 maid is much nicer, to my mind, than being 
 a bride. You have all the fun of a wedding 
 and the next day you forget all about it. 
 Rue, if we're asked, you're to wear pink and 
 I 'm to wear blue." 
 
 "What we wear always providing we 
 're asked will make very little difference 
 177
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 to any one, my dear. It's that sweet Lena 
 they'll be thinking about, all in her white. 
 Is n't it queer, Gordon, that we did n't see at 
 first how sweet she was?" 
 
 "Something had to be left to the unfold- 
 ing," Gordon Curtis answered in quite the 
 manner his Aunt Amrah Curtis might have 
 used. "If we saw everything at once, what 
 would be the use of going on ? I 'm sure Dal- 
 roy did n't appreciate you at the outset, but 
 now well, the town's as proud of you as if 
 you had been made to their order." 
 
 They were walking along the eastern edge 
 of the Rysdael Grove, and Rue, looking 
 through the trees to the quaint old house, 
 could not help commenting on it. "It's 
 quaint, is n't it ? Could n't you tell that some 
 unusual person lived there?" 
 
 "Which is the unusual person?" asked 
 Wylie. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Rysdael, of course! He's really 
 
 marvelous. He brought over part of what 
 
 he 's written for his book on lichens to show 
 
 us yesterday. The illustrations are to be in 
 
 178
 
 THE HARVEST MOON 
 
 color, and, do you know, he 's painted them 
 himself, yet no one had thought of him as an 
 artist. He said that he was n't, but that of 
 course he could paint the lichens." 
 
 "John Harmon is so fond of prosperous- 
 looking places and smart clothes and the 
 latest automobiles," Gordon remarked, "that 
 I wonder whether he '11 be willing to live in 
 the Rysdaels' old place." 
 
 "I warrant he will," Rue declared. "He 
 would n't think of taking Lena away from 
 her squirrels and her birds, and he'd be much 
 too kind to ask her to leave her father. To 
 ask Mr. Rysdael to leave this old place would 
 be an unthought-of cruelty." 
 
 "If he were my father," said Annie Dee, 
 " I 'd do anything he wanted me to. You have 
 to know him at home to get any idea how 
 nice he is. Now, you would n't think he'd 
 like verses, would you, but he was delighted 
 when I showed him 'The Elves." 
 
 The leaves on the ground were not deep 
 yet, the young people could not rustle in 
 them as they would be able to do a month 
 179
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 later, but they were falling and the air 
 was gay with them. Goldenrod and aster 
 made the wayside regal; the sumacs were 
 growing in splendor. Over the spirits of the 
 young people crept a quiet and happy mood. 
 
 Patricia and Robert joined them after a 
 while, and they all turned back through the 
 woods. They were not surprised to see Lena 
 and John Harmon walking together in a 
 grove. The air was golden now flooded 
 with all the splendor of the sunset. 
 
 "Oh, how happy they are !" cried Patricia, 
 with a sudden poignant envy. 
 
 "Don't envy them, Pat," Annie Dee an- 
 swered. "They have only just learned how 
 to be happy. Oh, who is that?" 
 
 A little woman, carrying a bouquet of fall 
 leaves in her hand, was coming at a quick 
 pace through the woods. She was dressed 
 all in brown, and with her bunch of bright- 
 colored leaves looked like some respectable, 
 middle-aged dryad. 
 
 "Oh, it 's Miss Ferris ! " said Rue under her 
 1 80
 
 THE HARVEST MOON 
 
 breath ; then, seeing that the woman was walk- 
 ing straight toward Lena Rysdael, she added, 
 "Oh, I hope she '11 be nice!" 
 
 It seemed cruel, Rue thought, that Miss 
 Ferris's sharp eyes should peer upon the 
 lovers* happiness. 
 
 John lifted his hat ; Lena was smiling. The 
 old village gossip was being pleasant, then ! 
 They saw her make a funny little bow and 
 hand the gathered leaves to Lena very 
 grandly. She had evidently presented them 
 as a betrothal offering ! She bowed again and, 
 turning, hurried away. John and Lena, ad- 
 miring the richly colored leaves, walked on in 
 the golden light ; but little Miss Ferris walked 
 alone, and it came to the minds of all those 
 who watched her that she always had walked 
 alone. Alone she had found her queer little 
 joys, alone she had borne the prick of sor- 
 row. She touched their hearts as she walked 
 there among the falling leaves, bound for her 
 solitary home. 
 
 "Perhaps she'll stop in to see mother," 
 said Rue, answering every one's thought 
 181
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 "She's not turning down our lane," Annie 
 Dee remarked. "She's going on home. Rue 
 ought n't we to go to see what mother is do- 
 ing ? Do you realize that no one is with her ? " 
 
 "But it's so wonderful here now," ob- 
 jected Gordon Curtis. 
 
 "Yes, there are n't many hours like this," 
 his brother agreed. 
 
 So they lingered ; and it was only when the 
 evening star showed its point of golden light 
 in the blue depths of the sky that they turned 
 their faces toward home. 
 
 Mrs. Wardell moved about softly, straight- 
 ening a picture, draping a curtain, wondering 
 vaguely at her contentment in a place that, 
 after all, was so new to her. The little woman 
 who had spent her life in this humble and 
 lowly place must have passed on the sacred 
 essence of homeliness to her successors. 
 
 "I like it," Mrs. Wardell said aloud. "I 
 
 like the dear little house and ' the mean little 
 
 town.' We came here strangers, and now we 
 
 are well acquainted, and none the worse for 
 
 182
 
 THE HARVEST MOON 
 
 the struggle we had to make to win our place. 
 We Ve all made it Bob offered his good 
 work and his heroism, Rue her strong good 
 sense and her beautiful proprieties, Annie 
 Dee her light-heartedness and her zest for 
 life, and I well, I Ve given what I had to 
 give." 
 
 She lifted from the table a picture of her 
 husband and looked at it smilingly. He 
 looked so young he always would look 
 young. She knew well that the wrinkles were 
 gathering in her face, that her hair was whit- 
 ening, and her step slackening; but she re- 
 gretted nothing. From the window she could 
 see the rich summer set toward decline the 
 cool, bright day move to evening ; but all was 
 well. Anne Wardell, being wise and humble, 
 patient and brave, would have had it no 
 other way. 
 
 It set her thinking of another picture she 
 had of her husband one taken when he 
 was a cadet, not twenty years old, at a mili- 
 tary academy. She remembered how high he 
 had carried his head and how full of life and 
 183
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 hope his eyes had looked. The picture, she 
 thought, must be in a certain trunk in the 
 storeroom, and with almost girlish eagerness 
 she climbed the stairs that led to the attic. 
 
 Once there, with the light streaming in 
 through the tiny windows, she enjoyed her- 
 self in that spirit of gentle retrospection and 
 mild adventure peculiar to searchers in such 
 storehouses of memories. She had gone 
 through two trunks without finding what she 
 was searching for, and was just about to open 
 a third trunk, when she saw, in a far corner, 
 a curious mess of stuff quite inconsistent with 
 her housewifely tidiness. 
 
 "Whatever in the world can it be?" she 
 asked aloud, and poked it cautiously with 
 one foot. It was the nest of some animal 
 tucked away under the eaves; or rather, it 
 was the cache of some explorer. 
 
 "It's the squirrels, the rascals! They've 
 been carrying off things and hiding them." 
 
 Wondering what the little thieves had hid- 
 den there, Mrs. Wardell began to investigate 
 with a stick. She found strings, bits of rib- 
 184
 
 THE HARVEST MOON 
 
 bon, quantities of thread, and then some- 
 thing that shone and glistened. With a swift 
 conviction of what that article was, she pulled 
 it out. 
 
 It was Rue's lost necklace with its tiny 
 topaz pendant ! 
 
 What beautiful news this would be for 
 Delia Sessions! Mrs. Wardell could hardly 
 wait until she got downstairs to the tele- 
 phone. 
 
 "Oh, Delia, is it you? Yes, my dear, this 
 is Mrs. Wardell. I'm very happy, Delia, for 
 I've just made such an interesting discovery. 
 It's Rue's necklace I've found it. In the 
 attic in a squirrel's nest of all places ! It 
 was so light, you see, that the little rascals 
 could drag it away easily, and of course they 
 liked it because it was so shiny. I knew you 'd 
 be glad. You 're going away next Wednesday, 
 you say ? You have the position as instructor 
 in fine sewing in the settlement house in Chi- 
 cago? Well, I think you're right to go, my 
 dear girl. I wish you Godspeed and a thou- 
 sand beautiful adventures. You say you Ve 
 185
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 found an old friend who will stay with your 
 cousin ? Oh, that 's good, is n't it ? I '11 be 
 down to see you to-morrow, Delia. Good-bye 
 good-bye!" 
 
 She seated herself in Miss Amrah Curtis's 
 little red rocker by the window and, folding 
 her hands in her lap, mused happily. That 
 the tears trailed slowly down her cheeks was 
 of small account. She did not know why she 
 wept. She told herself that she had never 
 been more at peace. So, musing, she fell 
 asleep, and in her dreams the lover of her youth 
 came into the room and stood before her, smiling 
 and speaking her name. 
 
 The sound of voices awoke her, and she 
 started up to see the young people trooping 
 up the path. John Harmon and Lena Rys- 
 dael were with them. She threw open the 
 door and called to them. 
 
 "Come," she said, "it's time for supper, 
 and you're all to stay. Lena, go get your 
 father to come, too. When you come back 
 I '11 give you my kiss of congratulation." 
 
 "What a burning shame to leave you 
 1 86
 
 THE HARVEST MOON 
 
 alone, you darling one!" Annie Dee said, 
 kissing her mother on both cheeks. 
 
 "I have n't been alone," said her mother. 
 And Annie Dee thought how rich and beau- 
 tiful her voice was. 
 
 "Have n't you? Who has been in, then?" 
 But Mrs. Wardell did not answer. 
 
 THE END
 
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