CHAPTER I

BANISHED

"No, Fritz, I cannot--"

"You _will_ not."

"Well, then I _will_ not ask mother to invite you to go on with us."

Amy spoke decidedly, but Fritz was not ready to give up.

"Oh, Amy, do be reasonable! I cannot say anything more to your mother, for you are in an obstinate mood, evidently determined to persuade yourself that you do not wish us to travel with you."

"That is true; I do not wish you to go on with us."

"But you and I are _such_ friends."

"So we are, and so we shall continue to be. Because we are such friends, I am sure that you will forgive me for being so--"

"So unreasonable."

"No--reasonable. Now just look at the whole thing sensibly. Here we are--mamma and I and two girls."

"What do you call yourself? Aren't you a girl?"

"Don't interrupt; perhaps I should have said two _school_girls. We have come away partly for rest and change, partly for study. So it would only upset all our plans to have you and your friend with us. You'd be dreadfully in the way."

"In the way! I like that. Why, you could rest, or study all day, for all we'd care, and we'd afford you the change that you would certainly need once in a while. Only--if you'll excuse my saying so--who ever heard of any one's resting or studying on a pleasure-trip? Just look at the funny side of it yourself, Amy--and smile--please."

Whereupon, quite against her will, the smile that twitched Amy's lips extended itself into a laugh, in which Fritz Tomkins joined heartily.

"Ah, Amy, that laugh makes me think of old times. So now perhaps you'll condescend to explain why two lonely youths may not visit the historic Acadia in company with you and your mother, not to mention the other members of your party."

Amy made no answer, and Fritz continued:

"Just think what we shall lose! It always benefits me to be with your mother, and you are so full of information, Amy, and you so love to impart what you know, that by the end of the journey I should be a walking guidebook. To go with you would be better than attending a summer school."

"There, Fritz," interrupted Amy, with rising color, "you are getting back at me for what I have said. But we really mean to make this an improving trip."

"So I should judge. Improving only to yourselves."

"Well, then I'll explain, since you find it so hard to understand. You surely know that mamma has been overworking, and yet she does not wish to waste the whole summer. So, after resting a little, she expects to find good sketching-material in Nova Scotia. Then I need more strength before the beginning of my Senior year."

"I'll be a Senior, too, in the autumn," murmured Fritz; but Amy, not heeding the interruption, continued:

"Then there's Priscilla; she has been rather low-spirited since her father died. She is generally in Plymouth in the summer, and this will be a change. Besides, she is to read a little English with me for her Radcliffe examinations."

"_Rest_--and _change_--and _study_, for three of you. Well, I do hope that the other girl is to get some pleasure out of the trip. Didn't you tell me that she comes from Chicago?"

"Oh, Martine finds amusement in everything--even in study. She was at a boarding-school last year on the Hudson, and she made life there so entertaining for herself and her classmates that she had to leave. Her parents then decided to have her visit relatives in Boston this spring. Next year she's to go to Miss Crawdon's. She's especially in mother's care, and I do hope she'll enjoy the summer, for she is worried about her mother, who is ill at some baths in Germany."

"Thus far, Amy, you haven't offered a single reason for your desire to banish us from your side. Neither Taps nor I will stand in the way of your mother's sketches, except to pose for her when she asks. We certainly won't deprive the air of its invigorating qualities; and we might even study--"

"No, Fritz, you'd simply be in the way."

"I won't admit that, Miss Amy Redmond, and if I should ask your mother, she would probably say that you are quite wrong in your opinion. In fact, that's why you won't let me talk with her. However, as you've extorted a promise from me, Taps and I will go as far away from you as we can--in Nova Scotia. We'll travel in the opposite direction from Acadia, for Nova Scotia is large enough to contain us all without a collision. But mark my words, many a time in the next few weeks you'll sigh for a manly arm to pull you out of your difficulties. _Then_ you'll remember me."

"I'm not afraid. Acadia has no dangers. Even the Micmacs are tamed. The French and Indian wars are over."

"That reminds me,--please excuse me for interrupting,--you will find Digby, where you are going to-morrow, very tame compared with Pubnico."

"Pubnico?"

"Yes, Pubnico, a wonderful French village, with Acadians and descendants of the old noblesse, and with many interesting things that you'll miss altogether in your misguided course. Then we shall go to the deserted Loyalist town, Shelburne, which is full of history and haunted houses."

"You seem to have digested a whole guidebook, Fritz. As Shelburne is on the opposite side of the peninsula, I suppose that you really have not intended to travel with us."

"Oh, I had two strings to my bow, and when I heard of the French villages, I decided that to visit them would be the next best thing to do." Then, looking at his watch, "But now I really must say good-bye; it's past my time for meeting Taps."

"Good-bye, Fritz." Amy held out her hand amicably. "You are not angry, are you?"

"No, not angry, only--I may never forgive you. Certainly I shall not forget."

Before Amy could reply, Fritz had wheeled away, and, turning a corner, was soon lost to sight. As Amy walked a few steps along the hotel piazza, suddenly she met her mother face to face.

"Where's Fritz?" asked Mrs. Redmond. "I expected to find him with you."

"Oh, he's gone. It's settled that the boys are not to come with us."

"But, my dear, I hope you have not sent him off. Sometimes you are too abrupt."

"Why, mother, I thought that you did not wish them to come with us."

"I was certainly surprised to see Fritz on the boat last evening. But he is like my own son, and if he has set his heart on going to Digby, we must not keep him away."

"Oh, he's going around on the other coast, he and his friend."

"Did you meet his friend?"

"No, I heard Fritz call him 'Taps'--a perfectly ridiculous name. Do you know anything about him?"

"Only what Fritz told me last evening--that he was a Freshman who had taken a violent fancy to him. Fritz said that he had agreed to travel with the boy this summer from a sense of duty."

"A sense of duty!"

"Yes; 'Taps,' as he calls him, has been trying to shake off some undesirable friends. He gave up a trip to Europe that he might avoid running across them, and Fritz, knowing the circumstances, thought that he could do no less than agree to take some other trip with him. It was only on the spur of the moment that they decided to come with us."

"Fritz was terribly cut up to find that we did not care to have them."

"Naturally--and indeed, Amy, if I had had a chance to talk frankly with him, we could have had them with us part of the time. His friend was a bright, honest-looking lad, hardly more than a schoolboy."

"Oh, mamma, I thought him so dandified!--just the kind to be a nuisance in a party that intends to rough it."

"Do you realize, Amy, that you use much more slang than before you went to college?"

"That's another reason for not having Fritz with us; it is not _my_ college, but _his_, that twists my vocabulary."

"Possibly, but I only hope that he is not offended. Well! well! Why, Priscilla, why, Martine, where have you been?"

As she spoke two young girls came running up the steps, and one of them with a bound flung herself upon Mrs. Redmond's neck.

"Oh, isn't it a perfect morning, so cool and salt-smelling! and it's almost as good as Europe to see a foreign flag floating from the hotel--even if it is only English. And isn't Yarmouth a dear sleepy old town, though it's said to be so American! Some one told me that it was the only place in Nova Scotia where they hustled. My, but I wish they could see Chicago! Then they'd know what 'hustle' means."

"Yes, my dear," gasped Mrs. Redmond; "but would you move your arm--just a little? You almost choke me."

"Please excuse me, but I feel so excited that I must hug somebody, and Priscilla and Amy never let me hug them."

"Why, I'm sure--" began Amy.

"Oh, no, you haven't said a word, that's quite true, and I've never even tried to embrace you, yet I'm perfectly sure that you would hate it, and so Mrs. Redmond--"

"Is the victim," rejoined Amy. "Well, mamma _is_ amiable. Only, while we are travelling, do be careful not to squeeze too tightly; it rumples her stock. Mamma, you'll really have to put on a fresh one before we start out."

During this conversation Priscilla had been silent. She was shorter than Martine, and fairer, and her expression was sad, or querulous,--at first glance it was hard to say which. Yet her half-mourning costume--the black skirt, and the black ribbon at her throat--suggested what was really the case--that Priscilla had had some recent sorrow.

"What have you been doing, Priscilla?" asked Mrs. Redmond, noticing the young girl's silence.

"Doing!" interrupted Martine, before Priscilla could speak. "Only think how silly she's been. This beautiful morning--and in a new place--she has spent writing letters. Isn't she a goose?"

"Oh, Martine!" and Amy shook her head in reproof.

Priscilla colored deeply as she turned apologetically to Mrs. Redmond. "I promised mamma to write as soon as I could. She will get my letter day after to-morrow."

"You were very considerate to write promptly. Your mother will be delighted to hear so soon. But where have _you_ been, Martine?"

"Oh, rambling a little; I just couldn't stay in the house."

"It's strange, Martine," added Amy, "but a while ago, when I took a stroll down the road, I saw a boy and a girl wheeling down a side street together who looked so like you."

"Which, the boy or the girl?"

Disregarding Martine's flippancy, Amy continued: "I realized that it couldn't possibly be you, as you know no one in Yarmouth."

"And didn't bring my wheel with me," added Martine. "So please, Miss Amy Redmond, don't see double, or else before I know it you'll have all my faults magnified to twice their size."

While Martine was speaking, Priscilla looked at her closely. But Martine, if she felt Priscilla's eye upon her, showed no embarrassment. Instead, she burst into a peal of laughter that woke from his slumbers a quiet old gentleman dozing over his newspaper in a piazza chair.

Martine's laughter quickly degenerated into a giggle, and with only an "Excuse me, I can't help it," she rushed into the house.

"There, mother," said Amy, "I fear that Martine will be a greater care to us than we expected. If she hadn't run off I was going to suggest that we all go for a walk, to see what there really is to be seen in the town. We'll have plenty of time before dinner."

"I'll get my hat and bring Martine with me;" and Mrs. Redmond left Priscilla and Amy by themselves.

A little later the four travellers were walking up the broad street, partially shaded with trees, through which they had many glimpses of the blue harbor.

"Isn't it strange," said Priscilla to Amy, "to think that this time yesterday we were half-stifled with Boston heat! They said that it was the hottest day of the season, and it is probably as hot there to-day; and here we are--"

"Ready to shiver," interposed Amy. "You should have brought a coat, Priscilla, for I almost feel an east wind."

"Oh, the air is soft. There's no danger of catching cold. Do you notice all the flowers in these little gardens? It's a pleasant air, like the Shoals, and those hawthorn hedges make me think of England,--at least, what I've read of it, for I've never been there. We must ask Martine."

"You are almost as eloquent as Martine herself." Amy turned toward Priscilla with a smile. "You were so quiet at breakfast, and indeed all the morning, until now, that I feared you were not enjoying the trip."

"Well, to be honest, I felt homesick at first. You see, I have never been away before without any of my family, and then I hadn't got the motion of the boat out of my head. But now I feel perfectly well, and perhaps--" but here Priscilla's voice was not quite steady--"perhaps I shall not be homesick."

Amy drew Priscilla's hand within her arm.

"Of course not. Naturally, you will miss your mother and the children. But you'll go back to them with such red cheeks, and so many interesting things to tell, that you will be glad you had courage to come away. You mustn't be homesick."

"Oh, I won't be," said Priscilla,--"that is, if I can help it; but if I didn't know you much better than Martine, I think that I'd have to go home."

Whereupon Amy, perceiving that Priscilla was not yet herself, strove to divert her by telling her little incidents of early Nova Scotian history. Her device was successful, and by the time they had overtaken Mrs. Redmond and Martine, Priscilla was quite cheerful again.

In their walk they had turned aside from the main street, and had reached a point on the outskirts where elevated land gave them a good view of the water. Mrs. Redmond and Martine had found a large flat rock, on which they seated themselves, and Mrs. Redmond was already at work with her sketchbook before her.

"I'm glad that you've come, Amy,--I mean Miss Redmond," began Martine. "I've been trying to tell your mother about some kind of a queer stone that I heard some people talking about at the breakfast-table to-day, but I haven't it quite clear in my mind, and so I'm waiting for you to help me out."

"Oh, the runic stone?" asked Amy. "There isn't so very much to tell about it, except that it was found more than seventy years ago, and is thought by some people to be a memorial of the Norsemen."

"The Norsemen in Nova Scotia? But why didn't they discover the stone before?"

"It was found by a Dr. Fletcher in a cove on his own property. The inscription was on the under side, and showed signs of great age. There, I believe I have something about it here;" and pulling a small notebook from her pocket, Amy refreshed her memory.

"Yes, it weighed about four hundred and fifty pounds, and some antiquarians have translated the inscription, 'Harki's son addressed the men.' It seems that there was a man named Harki among those Norsemen who sailed along the coast of America in 1007."

"That is certainly worth knowing," said Mrs. Redmond, "and I hope that we can see the stone before we go."

"Well, it's only fair," continued Amy, "to tell you that some learned people do not believe in the Norse theory."

"Perhaps it's like the inscription on the Dighton rock," interposed Priscilla, "that they now think was made by Indians."

"Yes," added Amy, "but the strange thing is that a few years ago a second stone was found about a mile away from the other, and the inscription on it was almost the same."

"Well," exclaimed Martine, "it doesn't matter whether the Norsemen really were here or not, as long as we can imagine that they may have been. I like the romantic part of history, if it gives you something entertaining to think about. It's all the same whether or not it is true."

After which heretical sentiment, Priscilla, Plymouth-born Priscilla, felt herself to be farther away than ever from Martine.

When Priscilla nestled down beside Mrs. Redmond to watch the growth of her sketch, Martine became impatient.

"Let us go back. We've seen everything there is to see in this part of the town, and perhaps I shall have time for a letter or two before dinner."

"I'll go with you," responded Amy. "I have some packing to do."

"Packing?"

"Oh, just to rearrange some of my things."

"Very well," said Mrs. Redmond. "Priscilla and I will wait until this sketch is finished, and then we'll return by the electric car."

"Any one would know that you and your mother are from Boston," said Martine, turning to Amy with a laugh. "I have heard my father say that Bostonians are the only people in the world who take the trouble to say 'electric cars.'"

"What do others say?"

"Why, trolley, of course. They'd laugh at you if you said anything else in Chicago."

"You're pretty rapid in Chicago."

"And you are rather--well, rather slow in Boston."