CHAPTER II

THE ATTIC

"How's this?" asked the man.

"Oh, wonderful! Those beams, they slant just like the story books say," declared Nora, ecstatically.

"Good enough to give you the right sort of nightmare, eh? Well, that's nice. Ted is always after the cobwebs, but I don't let her spoil them if I'm around. You see, cobwebs have a lot to do in my business."

"Cobwebs?" Nora poked her little head in between two chummy beams. "What do cobwebs do in surveying?"

"They make a cross line on my object glass. I'll show you when I get around to it," replied Jerry. "Now see here, here's the secret chest," he was opening a big wooden box, "and by a miracle," he continued, "it does hold clothes, duds, et-cet-tee-ra."

"The people who had this place gave a big party, I believe," explained Mrs. Ted, "and they left a lot of their costumes here. We have never had any chance to make use of them," she finished, slapping her hands on the work apron that partly covered her own mannish costume. Apparently she disdained the frivolous things.

"But just look!" Nora was almost in the big cedar chest; in fact, nothing more than a bump of white, ending in two small brown spots that waggled like sandaled feet, was visible. Presently the curly head emerged in a cloud of brilliant, spangly stuff, very evidently the costumes. "Aren't these just wonderful!"

"Oh yes," agreed Jerry, "they're nice and shiny. But just look at this spook cabinet. Do you know what a spook cabinet is, Nora?"

"No, what?" She dropped the costumes back into the big chest instantly.

"They're just a box of tricks. But this is the box empty. See here," Jerry opened, with some difficulty, the long narrow closet that was built in a corner of the attic room. "I have always wondered why this had a ventilator at the top----" he began.

"Jerry!" called his wife rather sharply. "Please don't do all the exploring in one day. Nora must change her things and come down stairs. She may want something to eat after her journey." Mrs. Ted's tone of voice was plainly against that cabinet.

"All right, Ted, I'll subside," replied the jolly man. "The fact is----" he whispered to Nora, "our Ted hates ghosts; and every time I talk about this here upright coffin, she objects," and he gave one of his boyish twisted yelps, as if he wanted to yell but didn't dare so gurgled instead, and it was very plain he said this out of pure mischief; nevertheless, it did cause the little girl to clench her small fists and start suddenly.

"Come right down stairs," insisted the hostess imperatively. "I'm very sure, Nora dear, you will find something more interesting in Vita's cake box than you could dig out of that dusty hole."

"Vita! What a queer name!" exclaimed Nora, following Mrs. Manton out from the interesting attic.

"Her whole name is more than that. It's Vittoria, but since she does our cooking and is both vital and vitaminous, we cut it down to an easy word implying both," explained Ted. "You see, Nora, we are keen on short cuts."

The little girl was thinking something like that. In fact, she was so fascinated with the realities of her visit she had almost lost the last shred of faith in her picturesque dreams. "If I had ever named a cook," she was deciding, "I should surely have given her Susan or Betsy or maybe Jennie. But Vita means more and makes you think of good victuals."

The open stairs were built winding from the big field stone hearth in the first room, clear up to the attic chamber, and, as they descended, Nora looked about the quaint, rustic place in rapturous admiration. Indeed, no dream of her great life series had ever included this. Gone with the Jim-Aunt Elizabeth idea was going the rag-rug four-poster plan, that had seemed almost indelibly outlined on her whimsical picture plate. She sighed a little, as she felt she should, on the "grave of her dreams;" but there was Jerry calling from the open door:

"Here you are, Nora! Come and meet Cap."

"Cap! A boy!" she asked excitedly.

"Not the regular kind, but he's some boy just the same." Jerry was clapping his hands like a boy himself, just as a big shaggy dog bounded down the path and up the few steps to the square porch.

"Oh, what a beauty! I have always loved a big dog!" exclaimed Nora. "What's his name?"

"Captain," replied the proud master. "Here Cap, come shake hands with Nora."

The dog cocked one ear up inquisitively, looked over the small girl with majestic indifference, walked around her twice and finally flung his bushy tail out with a swish that fanned Nora's cheek as she bent over to make friends.

"Isn't he lovely! Just like the picture in my first story book; the big dog that dragged the lost man out of the snow drifts," said Nora, almost breathless with delight.

"He is exactly that sort," explained Jerry. "He came from the other side and was a Captain in the big war."

"Oh," sighed Nora wistfully. "He must know an awful lot."

"He surely does, eh, old boy?" and the big shaggy head was patted affectionately.

Meanwhile Vita, the Italian woman who held the office of housekeeper, was depositing a mess of freshly-picked dandelions in a pan on the kitchen table. She smiled pleasantly at the little stranger, and at a single glance Nora knew she and Vita were sure to be friends.

"Now, you know us all," announced the hostess. "Vita and Captain complete the circle."

"Not counting the crow, and the rabbits and the cat and the----"

"The animal kingdom is not included," Ted interrupted her husband. "When we get to checking up the animals please, after Captain count in Cyclone."

"Cyclone! A horse?" asked Nora.

"Yes, the horse," answered Jerry. "He can climb trees, crawl through gullies and swim the river like a bear, according to Ted."

"Well, hardly all of that," qualified the smiling owner of the saddle horse Cyclone. "But he is a wonderful horse, Nora. I am sure you will want to ride him."

"Oh, I'd be dreadfully afraid," demurred the girl. "But perhaps----"

"You aren't going to be afraid of anything around here, Bobbie," Jerry assured the small girl, who looked smaller by contrast to the big man and the robust, athletic young woman; both perfect models of "America's best."

Considering the very short time little Nora had been at the Nest, it appeared much, in the way of acquaintance, had been accomplished.

"If you will just run off, Jerry-boy, and manage to find something to keep you busy for a half hour or so," begged his wife finally, "perhaps Nora and I will be able to settle down to the comforts of home."

"Am I not included?" he asked teasingly.

"Sometimes, but just now we need space," replied she, who was affectionately styled Teddy.

"That being the case----. Come along Cap," and the next moment a very happy, boyish man and a wildly happy dog went scampering off through the "flap-jack" path in the clearance. The path was made of selected flat stones scattered at stepping intervals, and it was Jerry who insisted they reminded him of Vita's best flap-jacks.

The coming of Nora to the lodge in the wilderness was the result of what seemed a necessity. The child was the daughter of Theodora Crane's best friend Naomie Blair, an artist so highly temperamental that, after a series of nerve episodes, she finally seemed forced to go to Western mountains and leave little Nora at a select school. The school was select to the point of isolation, and the teachers had advised Theodora, who was in charge of Nora, that the child was so nervous, high strung and fanciful, that the doctors had ordered a complete change of surroundings.

These characteristics were already showing in Nora's conduct; but with that understanding of childhood always a part of pure affection for it, Theodora was pleased, rather than worried, over the prospects ahead.

Nora herself seemed bewildered and fascinated. Her love of "dream things" was plainly a part of her nature, at the same time she was quickly learning that only happy realities can make happy dreams.

In the small satchel that Nora clung to was found no suitable change of anything like practical clothing, in fact her dress was so fussy, be-ribboned and be-frilled, that Teddy hesitated about offering any of it to the briars and brambles of the timberland.

"I pick out all my own dresses, you know," the little girl explained. "Nannie wasn't able to do any shopping so she had the catalogues sent to me by mail."

"Nannie?"

"That's mother, of course. But she is so little and delicate I could never think of calling her mother," declared Nora. "She likes Nannie better."

"You have quite a talent for names or re-names," joked Teddy. "I am wondering how I should have liked the 'Lizzie' you chose for me."

"Not Lizzie! Elizabeth," in a shocked voice.

"Same lady, I believe. But let's hold on to Ted until we get acquainted or things may go on end," advised good-natured Mrs. Manners. "Besides, there's our auto, that's 'Lizzie' to Jerry."

Nora did not ask why. She was in the yellow room, changing, and the blue roses in the filmy little dress she selected were not bluer than her own wondering eyes.

"I tell you what would be just the thing for you, dear," said Teddy suddenly. "You must join the Girl Scouts!"

"Girl Scouts!"

"Yes, you know about them, don't you?"

"I've read about them, but I really never could, Aunt Teddy. I couldn't be one of those wild, uncultured girls."

A delicious laugh escaped Teddy.

"Wild and uncultured!" she repeated. Then, seeing the pitifully blank look on Nora's face she dropped the subject. "Here's your closet," she explained next, opening the door of a built-in wardrobe, "and you better slip these little pads on the ends of hangers when you put pretty things on them. You see, we have very few fancy things out here, and these hangers are cut from our birch trees. I had a visitor last year who was so afraid of snakes she spent all her time around the lodge, so she made these pine pads with fancy stocking ends. I have never needed to use them."

The pads were little cushions of pine needles sewed in silk stocking ends, with a long open seam along the side. These slipped onto the hangers and were tied with tapes at the hook. Nora quickly adjusted one for her dotted swiss dress and another for her pink rose silk. These, strange to tell, she had carried in her hand bag.

"And here is your dresser," Teddy further introduced. "See what lovely deep drawers."

"Aren't they? I'd love to put lavender and rosemary in the corners. Do you--like those perfumes?"

"Well, yes, as perfumes. But I'm so used to the odor of freshly cut trees I'm afraid my finer taste is disappearing," said the other quietly.

Into the drawer Nora was placing such an outlay of finery as any young bride might have boasted of. Selecting from catalogues was only too evident in the lacy garments, with little ribbons, and tiny rose buds; pretty in themselves but absurd on the undergarments of a growing child. Then, there was an ivory set, mirror, comb, brush, etc. As the surprised Teddy glimpsed the display over a khaki covered shoulder she had difficulty in choking back a laugh.

"Naomie would be as silly as that," she pondered, silently, reflecting that the same sort of whims in dress and finery had been a real part of Naomie Blair's young girlhood.

Nora was placing her pretty things on the big dresser, with skilled little fingers, and that the fancy, private, exclusive school had helped to make silly traits even more pronounced in little Nora, was too evident.

Wisely, however, Mrs. Ted said not a word in opposition. Things must move slowly, she realized, if the quaint little dreamer was not to be too rudely shocked out of her fancies.

It was all very exciting even to the placid, well balanced young woman. To have the daughter of her girlhood friend come into her very arms, like a little bird battered in the storm of life's uncertainties, with tired wings falling against the bright window pane of love; then to see the dreams unfolded with the Jims, Elizabeths, ghosts and attic fancies, ready to reel off like an actual moving-picture--it was all very surprising, not to say astonishing, for the sensible, modern Mantons.

But could this same bright-eyed lady have looked into the summer ahead, and forseen the new fields of fancies that Nora was about to explore, she might have been still more amazed. Playing mother to a butterfly is not often a very satisfactory experience, but there was Nora, and if ever a child needed a mother this little "whimsy" did.

"To think of calling her mother Nannie," reflected Mrs. Manton, "and if only I could have called such a child 'daughter.'"

Jerry was back from his enforced trip to the lumberland, and his whistle trickled in the window on a flood of sunshine.

"Oh, let's go down," exclaimed Nora, brushing things hastily into the dresser drawer and neglecting to tie her sash in an even bow. "I'm so anxious to see your outdoors, I could easily believe there are fairies in these thick, tangly woods."

"Our birds and little animal friends are just as interesting as fairies," remarked Mrs. Ted, "but you must know them and they must know you."

"How ever could one get acquainted with birds?" asked Nora, stopping a moment on her way out to answer Jerry's whistle.

"We don't know how, but we know we do," replied Mrs. Ted, giving the flying window curtain a jerk to let the sun stream in. "Some day I must tell you about the poor little blue-jay we took in and nursed. He got so fond of us I could hardly get him to fly away."

"I had a canary once, Nannie sent it for Christmas, but I had to let him go," said Nora. "He was just breaking his heart in that tiny, little cage. I never wanted a bird again."

"They are pathetic when caged," agreed Mrs. Manton, "but when out in their own woods they seem to be the very happiest little creatures of all creation. Run along," she said, as Nora waited politely. "That Jerry-boy is getting impatient."

As the child fluttered off, her yellow ringlets dancing and her dainty little skirts swishing around the half tied ribbon sash, Mrs. Ted smiled and pondered:

"Another little blue-jay to love; but she will surely want to fly away in her sky of dreams, and I pity the tired wings when night comes," sighed the potential mother.