Part 2

“There comes the mail,” called Jean, starting up and running down the drive as the truck came in sight. The carrier waved a newspaper and letter at them.

“Nothing for you girls today, only a letter for your father and a weekly newspaper for Matt. I’ll leave it up at the old place as I go by.” He added as a happy afterthought to relieve any possible anxiety on their part, “It’s from Delphi, Wisconsin.”

Kit stood transfixed with wonder, as he passed on up the hill. “Jean,” she said slowly, “there’s something awfully queer about me. That letter was from Uncle Barton Cato Peabody.”

“Well, what if it is?” asked Jean, shaking the needles from her blouse.

“But, don’t you get the significance? I was just telling you about him and now there’s a letter from him for Dad.”

4. Kit’s Plan

It appeared that Uncle Bart lived strictly up to tradition, for it had been over fifteen years since any word had been received from him. The letter which broke the long silence was read aloud several times that day, the girls and Tommy especially searching between its lines for any hidden sentiment or hint of family affection.

“I don’t see why he tries to be generous when he doesn’t know how,” Doris said musingly. “I wonder if he’s got bushy gray hair.”

“Wait a minute while I read this thing over carefully again,” Kit said. “I think while we’re alone we ought to discuss it freely. Mother just took it as if it were of no consequence. It seems to me, since it concerns us vitally, that we ought to have some selection in the matter ourselves.”

“But Kit, you didn’t read carefully,” Jean interrupted with a little laugh. “See here,” she followed the writing with her fingertip. “He says, ‘Send me the boy.’ That means Tommy.”

“Yes, I know it does, but Mom said she didn’t want Tommy to go now. She said he’s too young to go off alone.”

“Well then, that scotches the deal as far as the rest of us are concerned.”

“I don’t see why I can’t go,” said Kit rather sadly. “I should have been a boy anyway, I’m more like Dad than any of you.”

“No matter what you say,” Jean replied, “I don’t think you’re especially like Dad at all. He hasn’t a quick temper and he’s not the least bit domineering.”

Kit leaned over her tenderly. “Darling, am I domineering to you? Have I crushed your spirit? I’m awfully sorry. I didn’t mean that my bad habits were inherited from Dad. What I meant was my initiative and craving for something new and different. Just at the moment I can’t think of anything that would be more interesting or adventurous than going out to Uncle Bart’s, and trying to fulfill all his expectations.”

“Thought you wanted to go out to the Alameda Ranch with Uncle Hal more than anything in the world, a little while ago. You’re forever changing your mind, Kit.”

“Golly, I wouldn’t give a darn for a person who couldn’t face new emergencies and feel within them the surge of--of--”

“We admit the surge, but would you really and truly be willing to go to this place? I don’t even know what state it’s in.”

There was a footstep in the long hallway, and Mr. Craig came into the living room.

“Dad,” called Doris, “were you ever in Delphi, where Uncle Bart lives?”

Mr. Craig sat down on the arm of Jean’s chair and lit his pipe.

“Just once, long ago when I was about eight years old. We, that is, my mother and I, stayed for about a week at Delphi. It’s a little college town on Lake Michigan, perhaps sixty miles north of Chicago on the big bluffs that line the shore nearly all the way to Milwaukee. Uncle Bart helped to establish Hope College there in Wisconsin. I don’t remember so very much about it, though, it was so long ago. I seem to remember Uncle Bart’s house was rather cheerless and formal. He was a good deal of a scholar and antiquarian. Aunt Della seemed to me just a little shadow that followed after him, and made life smooth.”

Kit listened very closely to every word he said, and Jean was looking up at him seriously.

“I don’t think,” continued their father easily, “that it would be a very cheerful or sympathetic home for any young person. Your mother is right in not wanting to let Tommy go.”

“Oh, but Dad, gee,” Kit burst out eagerly, “Think what a challenge it would be to make them understand how much more interesting you can make life if you only take the right point of view.”

“Yes, but supposing what seemed to be the right point of view to you, Kit, was not the right point of view to them at all. Everyone looks at life from his own angle.”

“Aldo always said that, too,” Jean put in. “Remember, the boy from Italy I met when I was in New York last winter? I remember at our art class each student would see the subject from a different angle and sketch accordingly. Aldo said it was exactly like life, where each one gets his own perspective.”

“But you can’t get any perspective at all if you shut yourself up in the dark,” Kit argued. She leaned her chin on her hands. “Now just listen to this, and don’t all speak at once until I get through. You went away, Jean, to New York, and though maybe I shouldn’t say this, you came back home very much better satisfied and pleasanter to live with. I think after you’ve stayed in one place too long you get fed up and wish there were some way to get away somewhere. I haven’t any special talent for art or anything like that, but I’d like to get away and see something different for a change. And Dad darling, if you would only consent to let me go for even two or three months, I will come back to you a perfect angel, besides doing Uncle Bart and Aunt Della oodles of good.”

“It sounds right enough, dear,” Mr. Craig said, his gray eyes full of amusement, “but we can’t very well disguise you as a boy, and Uncle Bart is not the kind of person to trifle with.”

Kit thought this over seriously.

“Don’t tell them until I’ve started,” she suggested, “and be sure and mail the letter so it will get there after I do, and send me quick, so they won’t have any chance to change their minds. Jean will be here and you really and truly don’t need me here at all.”

“Well, I don’t know what to say, Kit. I’ll have to talk it over with your mother first. I wonder why Uncle Bart wanted Tommy specially.”

“Maybe he thought a boy would be more interested in antiques. Are they Chinese porcelains and jewels, or just mummy things?”

“Mostly ruins, as I remember,” laughed her father. “When he was young, Uncle Bart used to be sent away by the Geographical Society to explore buried cities in Chaldea and Egypt.”

“I wish I could coax him to start in again, right now, and take me with him,” Kit exclaimed, blithely. “Anyhow, I’m going to hope that it will come right and I can go. Can I borrow your trunk Jean? Just write a charming letter, Dad, sort of in the abstract, thanking him and calling us ‘the children’ so he can’t detect just what we are, then when I depart, you can wire them, ‘Kit arrives such and such a time.’ They’ll probably expect a Christopher, and once I land there, and they realize the treasure you have sent them, they will forgive me anything.”

Uncle Bart’s letter was read over again carefully by Mrs. Craig. Kit carried it out to the grape arbor where she was shelling peas for dinner.

“Just read that letter over, Mom, very, very carefully, and see if there isn’t some way you can smuggle me out to Delphi, without hurting Uncle Bart’s feelings.”

Mrs. Craig took the letter and together they read it again--

My dear Thomas:

I trust both you and Margaret are enjoying good health, and that this finds you both facing a more prosperous time than when I heard last from you.

It has occurred to both Della and myself that we may be able to relieve you of part of your responsibility and care, at least for a short time. If the experiment should prove advantageous to all concerned we might be able to arrange a longer stay. One suggestion, however, I feel privileged to make. We would prefer that you would send the boy, as you know this is a college town, and I am sure it would broaden his views to come west, even for a short time. I need hardly add that we will do all in our power to make his stay a pleasant and profitable one.

Another point to consider is this. I would like to interest him in a few of my little hobbies, archaeology, geology, etc. I have delved deeply into the mysteries of the past, and feel I should pass on what I have learned as a heritage to youth.

Trusting that you and Margaret will be able to coincide with our views in the matter, I remain,

Yours faithfully, Barton C. Peabody.

“You know, Mom,” here Kit slipped her arm persuasively around her mother’s shoulder, “you’ve always said yourself that I was more like a boy. And Buzzy says I’m an awfully good pal, and he’d much rather talk to me than any of the boys around here because I understand what he’s driving at.”

“I don’t think it would matter, if you only visited them for a couple of months, but supposing Uncle Bart took a fancy to you.” Mrs. Craig’s eyes twinkled as she watched Kit’s grave face.

“You mean,” she said, “supposing he decided that my brain measured up to his expectation and they wanted me to stay all winter? Couldn’t I go to school there, just as well as here? You ought to realize, Mom, that I’m really not a child any longer. I’m sixteen.”

“Reaching years of discretion, aren’t you,” smiled her mother. “I suppose it would do you a lot of good in a broadening way to go through a new experience like this.”

“I’m not thinking about that.” Kit sent back an understanding gleam of fun, “but I’m perfectly positive that it would do Uncle Bart and Aunt Della an awful lot of good.”

“Then we shouldn’t deprive them of the opportunity. Do you think so, Matt?”

Matt stuck his head through the vines and clustering leaves. “Couldn’t do no harm either way, s’far as I can see,” he said. “And if the old folks need any sort of discipline, I’d certainly start Miss Kit after them.”

5. Farewell Party

That was the end of August. Becky approved of the plan, and said no doubt the fire down at Woodhow had been a good thing after all.

“You were all of you settling down into a rut before it happened, and the old place needed a thorough going over anyhow. You know you couldn’t have afforded it, Tom, if it hadn’t been for the fire insurance money coming in so handy. Now, you’ll all move back the first part of the winter, with the new furnace set up, and no cracks for the wind to whistle through. Jean will be here and I don’t think Kit’s a bit too young to be going off alone. Land alive, Margaret, you ought to be so thankful that you’ve got children with any get-up to them in this day and age. The Judge and I were saying just the other night it seems as if most of the young people up around here haven’t got any pluck or initiative at all. They’re born to feel that they’re heirs of grace, and most of them are sure of having a farm or wood lot in their own right, sooner or later.”

So the trunk stood open most of the time, and Kit prepared for her trip to Delphi. Mr. Craig was inclined to take it as rather a good joke on the Dean, but Mrs. Craig could not get over a certain little feeling of conscience in the matter. The rest of the family pinned its faith on Kit’s persuasive adaptability.

Tommy was a little disappointed at first not to be going, but then he thought of leaving Jack behind. He knew that Jack would be sure to get into trouble if he weren’t there to look after him and he was extremely proud of his responsibility. Doris dreaded going back to school without Kit.

“Lucy Peckham will go over with you,” Kit told her cheerfully, “and just think of the wonderful letters you’ll have from me, Doris. Miss Cogswell says that I always shine best when I’m writing, and I’ll tell you all the news of Hope College. By the way, Dad told me last night that he’s pretty sure in those little family colleges they run a prep department, which takes in the last two years of high school. Perhaps I could persuade them that the great-grandniece of Barton Cato would be a deserving object of their consideration. Don’t forget to pack my skates, Doris. I let you have them last, and they’re hanging in your closet.”

Becky decided to have a farewell party, two nights before Kit left, and the girls and Tommy were delighted. Any party launched by Becky promised novelty and excitement.

They danced in the living room to the tune of the records on the phonograph. In the library, some of the younger ones were playing forfeits. Abby Tucker was giving out forfeits, sitting blindfolded on a chair.

It happened that Doris’s little turquoise for-get-me-not ring was the particular forfeit dangling over Abby’s head, when Billie stuck his head in at the open window, and Abby lifted her chin at the sound of his voice.

“She must catch Billie Ellis, and bring him back to kneel at my feet, and hand over his forfeit.”

Billie had evaded this, whirling about in the driveway and speeding down the long lane with Doris in fast pursuit. Overhead the mulberry trees met in a leafy arcade, and out of the hazel thicket a whippoorwill called, flying low down the lane after the two darting forms, as if it were trying to find out what the excitement was about at that time of night. At the turn of the lane there were three apple trees, early Shepherd Sweetings, and here Billie slipped down and lay breathing heavily, his hands hunting for windfalls in the tall grass. Doris passed him by, speeding the full length of the lane and bringing up at the end of the log run before the old mill.

“Billie Ellis, you come out of there,” she called. “I’ve got my shoes wet already chasing after you, and I’m not going to climb all over those old timbers hunting for you.”

Only the whippoorwill answered, calling now from a clump of elderberry bushes close by the water’s edge, and while she stood listening, there was the dull splash in the pond where some big bullfrog had taken alarm at her coming.

Billie gathered a goodly supply of apples, and stole after her in the shadows.

“Well, I’m not going to stay out here all night waiting for you,” Doris said, addressing the wide dark entrance to the mill, when all at once there came his voice, directly behind her shoulder.

“Why didn’t you try to catch me? I was resting back under the apple tree. Let’s sit down over the falls and eat some apples. If Abby’s waiting for me to kneel in front of her, she’ll wait all night. I’d like to see myself kneeling in front of a girl!”

The words had hardly left his lips, before Doris played an old-time schoolgirl trick on him. Catching him by his collar, she twirled him about with an odd twist until he knelt in front of her. Although Billie was older than she was, she had managed to catch him off guard. Billie shook himself ruefully when he rose.

“You always catch a guy when he’s not expecting anything,” he said.

“Do you good,” she retorted serenely. “Ever since you went away to school, you’ve had a high and mighty opinion of yourself. I hope you get over it. Aren’t these apples swell, though? Do you suppose they’ll mind very much if we stay just a few minutes? Don’t you love this old pond, Bill? Remember your flat-bottomed boat that always leaked when we used to go fishing in it. How I hated to take turns bailing it out.”

“Yeah. Gee, I wish I didn’t have to go back to school so soon.”

“Wouldn’t it be strange, Bill, if either of us were famous some day? I know you’re going to be somebody special. Maybe it will be in natural history.”

Billie laughed comfortably, perching himself just below her on the heavy timbers of the old sluice gate. “Grandfather says I have a great responsibility on my shoulders, because I’m the last of the Ellis family. He says there’s always been an Ellis in the State Legislature at Hartford, ever since there was a legislature, and just as soon as I’m old enough, he’s going to send me to law school. Gee, I wish he wouldn’t. Think of being shut up all day long in an office.”

Far down the lane they heard the others calling them and Doris sprang up, scattering apples as she did so.

“I’d forgotten all about the party,” she exclaimed. “Anyway, I’m glad we had a chance to talk. If I were you, I’d just read and study everything I could lay my hands on about insects and things, all the time I was in school, and then when the Judge sees that you’re in dead earnest about it, he’ll let you go on. I heard Dad say that Mr. Howard knew more about insects than any man he’d ever met, and that he was considered one of the coming experts in government work. Why, Bill, it’s just like a great scientist or doctor, who is able to discover a certain germ that can be used as a toxin, only you doctor plants and things.”

“I know,” Billie agreed enthusiastically. “There’s some man who discovered the cause of the wheat blight in the south and somebody else figuring out what was killing our chestnuts off. Doris, you’re a swell pal. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know whether I’d ever have seen a chance to study what I want to, but you encourage me.”

Doris laughed and tagged him on the shoulder as she broke into a run. “You’re it. Don’t give anyone else the credit for starting you off in the way you know you ought to go. Just take a deep breath and race for it.”

6. “The Boy’s” Arrival

Mr. Craig had answered the first letter from Delphi, under Kit’s careful supervision, and the acceptance was vague enough to please her.

It aroused no suspicions whatever in the minds of Dean Peabody or Aunt Della. The only question was, who was to meet the child in Chicago. The through express would leave _him_ there, and in order to connect with the Wisconsin trains it was necessary to make the change over to the Northwestern Depot.

Della was far more perturbed over it than her brother. Having set in motion the coming guest, he believed firmly that an unfaltering Fate would direct his footsteps safely to Delphi. Barton Cato Peabody had been peculiar all his life. He had been a strange boy, unsettled, studious, impractical. Miss Della was his younger sister, and ever since her youth had tried to give him all the love and encouragement that others refused. She had followed him faithfully and happily on all of his exploring expeditions. Perhaps one reason why these had been so successful was because she had always managed to surround him with home comforts, even in the wilds of the upper Nile.

And perhaps the quaintest thing about it all was that Della herself, no matter on what particular point of the globe she had happened to pitch her tent, had always retained her courage, although she had faced dangers that the average woman would have fled from.

Their house stood on the same hill as Hope College, the highest point in the rising ridge of bluffs along the Lake Shore at Delphi. It was built of dark red brick, a square house with long French windows. A grove of pine trees almost hid it from view on its street side, the stately Norway pines that Kit loved. The back of the house looked directly out over the lake, and the land here was frankly left to nature. Trees, grass, and underbrush rioted at will, until they suddenly ended on the brow of the bluff, where there was a sheer drop to the beach. Looking at it from below, Kit afterwards thought it was like a miniature section of the Yosemite; the sand had hardened into fantastic shapes, and the rock strata in places was plainly visible.

Mrs. Craig’s telegram arrived the night before Kit herself. It was brief and noncommittal. “Kit arrives Union Station, Chicago, Thursday, 10:22 A.M.”

“Kit,” repeated the Dean. “Humph! Nickname. Superfluous and derogatory.”

Della took the telegram from his desk with a little smile that was almost tremulous with excitement. “It’s probably the diminutive for Christopher, Bart,” she said. “I think it’s a nice name. I always liked the legend of St. Christopher. Somebody’ll have to meet him down in Chicago. He might lose his head and take the wrong train.”

“He’s about sixteen, isn’t he? Old enough to change from one train to another, and use his tongue if he’s in doubt. When I was sixteen, Della, I was earning my own living working on a farm summers, and going to a school in the winter where we all had to work for our board. Never hurt us a bit. The greatest trait of character you can instill in a child is self-reliance.”

Della had a little way of appearing to listen while her brother expounded on any of his favorite subjects. It had grown to be a habit with her, and she had a way of answering absently, “Yes, dear, I’m quite sure of it,” which always satisfied him that he had her attention. But now, she sat looking out the window and thinking, a perplexed expression on her face.

It had not altogether been her desire that the coming child should be a boy, although not one word had she breathed of this to Dean Peabody. The determination to take one of the Craig children had been a sudden one. The Dean had been reading somebody’s theory about the obligations of age to youth.

“Della, my dear,” he had remarked one evening, as the two sat quietly in the old library, “we have been leading very narrow, selfish lives, and we will suffer for it as we grow older. We have shut ourselves away from youth. I am seventy-four now, and what heritage am I leaving to the world beyond a few books of reference, and my collections? What I should do is to take some child, still in the impressionable stage, and impart to it all I know.”

Della glanced up with a little amused twinkle in her eyes. “But, Bart, what about the child? Surely you would require an exceptional child for such an experiment. One who would have the mentality to grasp all that you were trying to impart to it.”

The Dean thought this over, pursing his lips and tapping his knuckles with his rimless glasses. “Possibly,” he granted, “and yet, Della, surely there would be far more credit attached to planting the seed of knowledge where it needed much cultivating. It has surprised and amazed me up at the college to find that usually the children who appreciate an education are the farmer boys, and very often the foreign element.”

Della rocked to and fro gently. She knew her brother well enough to understand that this had become a fixed idea with him, and the easiest way out was to find him an impressionable child. And then, it happened that she thought of Thomas Craig, their nephew, and all his children. She remembered having one letter after the breaking up of the home on Long Island.

“You know what I think, Bart,” began Della in the bright, abrupt way she had, “I think it would be the right thing if we took one of the Craig children. There are four or five of them--”

“Boys or girls?” interrupted the Dean.

“Well, now I’m not quite sure, but if my memory serves me, I think there’s a boy among them. I know the eldest one is a girl. They’re all of them over ten, I’m sure. Why don’t you just write to Thomas and make known your willingness? I am sure they would take it in the spirit in which it was offered.”

So this was how it happened that the Dean’s letter went forth to Elmhurst, and produced the hour when Kit stood on the platform of the Union Station in Chicago, looking around her to discover anyone who might appear to be seeking a small boy.

Gradually the long platform that led up to the concourse cleared. Kit went slowly on, following the porter who carried her suitcase. She was looking for someone who might resemble either the Dean or Della from her father’s description of them.

“As I remember him,” Mr. Craig had said, “the Dean was very tall, rather sparely built, but broad-shouldered and always with his head up to the wind. His hair was gray and curly. Aunt Della was like a little bird, a gentle, plump, busy woman, with bright brown eyes and a little smile that never left her lips. I am sure you can’t mistake them, Kit, for in their way they are very distinctive.”