The Prodigal Girl (14 page)

Breakfast was a dream.

A wide, low-browed room with a great open fireplace stood at one end, high enough and wide enough for one to stand within its enclosure, the fire leaping over great back logs as if it loved them, as if it were a part of a happy, pleasant place. The walls were painted white, with sheer white ruffled curtains tied back from the small-paned, old-fashioned windows. The floor was wide old boards scrubbed to glistening white and sanded. The tables and chairs were painted apple green, and the linen that dressed them was glistening white and immaculate. It was as if they were guests in a comfortable old farmhouse where everything was ordered for beauty and peace. The neat maids in simple print dresses and white aprons brought oatmeal that would put to shame its sister cereals in other stopping places; brought rich yellow cream in fat little apple-green pitchers; brought sausage and fried potatoes so crisp and well seasoned that they seemed some lordly dish; brought golden-brown wheat cakes, light as a feather, and coffee fit for a prince to drink. There were plates of golden honey in the comb, and willow baskets filled with deep-purple grapes. The children ate and ate and could not bear to leave a crumb.

Betty drank two cups of that strong delectable coffee and felt better. So did Chris. They had eaten of everything, even the despised oatmeal, until they were ready to burst, and when they finally gathered their effects and packed themselves once more into their car in the wide cobbled square, they were reluctant to leave the odd old-fashioned inn. There was in their general attitude more of the spirit of holiday than any of them had felt the day before, and they rode away into the morning with a certain feeling of adventure that was almost enjoyable. They had almost forgotten that they were being kidnapped.

The sun was shining when they drove away. The bare brown branches stood out against the sky like brown lace. The little streams they passed glistened in the sunlight. The brightness flooded everything and made the meanest home they passed seem cheerful. There was a briskness in the air that brought a smile to the faces of people on the street.

The sun was still shining fitfully as they skirted New York to avoid the heaviest of the traffic, though deep-blue clouds the color of ink stains were looming on the horizon.

Chester eyed them anxiously as he speeded on every clear stretch of road and pressed on long after the others had confessed they were hungry.

“We’re going to have some bad weather, I’m afraid,” he said once when they came to a long detour that was bound to delay them.

They had a late afternoon luncheon at a small, smug town hotel, not half so well cooked as their breakfast had been, nor nearly so intriguing in its menu. Underdone chicken and heavy biscuits, elaborate salad on wilted lettuce, elaborate desserts, ice cream and pie and pastry, but it did not satisfy as the morning meal had done.

Chester hurried them out to the car again, paused to give a few careful directions and point out something on the map to Michael, then, with another anxious look at the sky, he put Chris at the wheel and they started on again.

The sun was making no pretense of shining now. It seemed to have erased itself from the heavens. The sky was overcast with thousands of clustery blue-black fragments of cloud, hurrying busily here and there at cross purposes, some lazing and blocking the way for others. It gave the sky an uneasy, restless appearance. The whole family felt it. Doris and John fidgeted, and wanted to get out and walk, wanted to stretch out full length and rest, wanted to ask innumerable questions. The whole little company began to have a breathless feeling as if they were running a race, and even Eleanor began to look out at the clouds anxiously and finally suggested timidly that perhaps they ought to find a place to stop for the night if there was going to be a storm.

Then suddenly they came upon a forest, standing up before them in serried ranks, like beautiful soldiers in battle array, lifting dark, lovely arms of fir and balsam and pine. Spires of white birch were etched delicately against the plumy branches of the evergreens. The road was covered with pine needles, hushing their going till the way seemed almost enchanted.

Down into a narrow dirt road they dashed, amid the winter grandeur, a moss-banked brook at the side, with a sudden bridge across it made of great logs put corduroy fashion, rumbling like thunder as they flew over; a road so narrow that two cars could not pass. They wondered what would happen if another car came in sight. But none came.

A chance railroad leaped across in front of them in an occasional break in the woods, no sign of its being, no voice of engine or warning word, no hint of station or possible train to travel it, just a shining track left there alone in a great crack in the vast forest. It seemed like some forgotten toy of a forgotten generation.

Now and then they came out of the forest for a mile or two to skirt some gleaming lake, its waters like the polished sheen of gunmetal in the gloom of the cloudy winter afternoon; then into the forest again, and on, through the narrow, quiet road that seemed to wear an eerie light of mystery. The tinkling brook was much farther below them now, and at the next turn, close below them, they saw a great stone covered with vivid moss and lichens in the midst of a tiny torrent.

“Oh,” the children exclaimed. “Oh, Daddy! Let us get out and climb over on that stone!”

“Yes, Daddy! Stop! I never saw a stone like that!” cried Jane.

“There will be other stones,” said Chester. He was looking up at the clouds.

They began to climb upward, and still the serried ranks of trees seemed to be climbing with them. But when they came out into the open again, across another chance railroad that ambled through the wilderness, there were slow, lazy flakes drifting down through the leaden air, and the sky overhead seemed menacing.

It was not half an hour before the few lazy flakes had become millions, great fat, wide flakes, like small blankets, hastening, blurring and blotting the landscape from sight. They clung to the windshield, and when the windshield wiper slushed them off they froze again in a fine blur over the glass and made it almost impossible to see the way ahead.

Eleanor was almost glad when the road wound into the woods again because here the snow was not so thick, being held off by the branches overhead; and yet, there was a kind of feeling of insecurity about it all that made her apprehensive. She began to wonder if it had been wise to come away like this in the dead of winter into a strange, wild place where they knew nothing about anything, or anybody. She eyed her husband anxiously, but though his face was grave, he did not look worried, more as if he were eager.

They were passing few villages now, although there were lakes with summer cottages circling about them. But in the gathering dusk they were hardly cheerful with their boarded-up windows. There were no stars, and the moon seemed to have been blotted off the heavens.

Chester had taken the wheel again himself during the last hour and was driving ahead as if he saw a definite goal not far away. He seemed to be well satisfied at each small landmark, never hesitating which way to turn at a crossing.

“Are you sure you know the way, Chester?” Eleanor ventured at last. “It looks so all alike,” she added fearfully.

“Positive!” said Chester cheerfully. “I knew every twig and stone for miles around this region when I was a boy.”

“It would be some stunt for you to get lost in a dump like this!” sneered Betty.

The children looked at their father wonderingly and stared out into the dark night again. Somehow he seemed unfamiliar. It had never been a reality before to them that he had been a boy. Chris stared out at the murky shadows and grew thoughtful. He wondered what it would have been like to have been a boy with Dad. He was a pretty good sport sometimes. He would have been a peach of a kid.

“Didya go a fishing?” suddenly called out John, who was supposed to be asleep.

“I sure did,” said Chester. “Remember that great boulder we saw down in the creek below the log bridge this afternoon? I used to sit on a boulder like that hour after hour and fish for trout. I’m not sure, but that boulder may be there yet. We’ll take a look someday.”

“Gee!” said John sleepily and dozed off again.

It began to seem as if the last forest they had entered was interminable, but suddenly they came out upon a fairy scene—the dull sheen of dark water, set in white velvet, and lit by the clustering constellations of a little town on its farther bank.

“There she is!” exclaimed Chester excitedly, almost as John might have said it. “Right across there. That’s the town where I used to go Saturdays to buy things for my mother: shoes, and sugar, and corn to feed the chickens!”

Betty sat up and stared coldly at the few bright lights.

“Is that all there is of it?” she asked contemptuously and relapsed into her corner again as if she had no further interest.

They drove through the little country town that lay snugly under its new white blanket of snow. The roofs were blanketed and hung with festoons already, and the streets looked deserted. Only a few houses showed lights in the lower floors, for the hour was growing late for country folks. The stores were closed and shuttered. To all intents and purposes it was midnight in the main street of Wentworth.

Chester slowed down the car and looked eagerly about him, driving as if he loved it all. Even under the snow it looked clean and good and homely to his weary eyes. If only he could find his mother waiting at the journey’s end as he used to in the boyhood days! If only he might take Eleanor to her, and his children. She would have known what was the matter with his children. She would have told him what to do with them! Had he drifted away from her teaching that he did not know himself what to do for them?

At the end of the short street Chester made a sharp turn to the right, up a hill, and was plunged once more into midnight darkness, with the tall forest on either side.

Eleanor’s heart sank.

“Don’t you think, dear,” she said leaning forward and speaking hesitantly, “wouldn’t it be a good idea to just go back to that little town and stay at the hotel all night? You are so tired—we all are tired.”

“Hotel’s closed this time of year.”

“Well, then, somebody must take strangers. Couldn’t we inquire?”

“No, Eleanor, it wouldn’t do. You know I telegraphed to Jim Hawley to expect us. He has the key, and I told him to have the fires lighted and the lights going. He might wait up all night for us. It’s only a couple of miles farther now.”

The children began to stir restlessly, breathing on the windows and trying to peer into the impenetrable darkness. Eleanor’s heart grew strangely heavy. What was coming next? She was so weary it seemed as if she could bear no more strain.

A few minutes later they stopped at a little shanty of logs, where a lantern was slung out over a crude porch.

Chapter 11

A
woman opened the door as the car stopped and came out shading her eyes with a worn hand.

“Is this Mrs. Hawley?” asked Chester, lowering the window and speaking into the snowy atmosphere. His voice sounded strange and shut in as voices sound when children play under a tent of quilts.

“Yes. I’m Jim’s mother. And this’ll be Mr. Thornton. I remember you when you was a little kid.”

“Jim got my telegram, then?” asked Chester, impatient to be gone. “Is he over at the farm?”

“Yes, he got the telegram, leastways I did. Murdock brought it over this morning on his way back from his milk route. But Jim, he’s broke his leg, Mr. Thornton. A tree fell on him and busted him all up. He’s flat on his back fer a spell, I guess. Don’t ‘spose he’ll be much use till spring now. Yes, he’s awful sorry he couldn’t do nothin’ fer ya, Mr. Thornton. Yer Ma was allus so awful good to him when he was a little kid and sickly like. But you’ll find plenty o’ wood. Jimmy, he stowed it up in the woodshed thinkin’ it might be needed. An’ I managed to git up there myself today an’ dust around and lay a few fires. You ain’t got nothin’ to do but touch a match to ‘em. Sorry I can’t take you all in, but we ain’t got a fire only in one room, and the rest o’ the house is cold as charity. You’ll be more comfortable in yer own place. But I kin make ya a pot of hot coffee ef you’ll wait—”

“No, Mrs. Hawley,” protested Chester. “We won’t wait for that. We’ve plenty of coffee in our thermos bottle, and we’d better be getting on. Thank you just the same. Have the key?”

“Yes, I’ll get it—”

She hobbled back into the house, and they noticed that she was lame.

“To think she should have taken all that trouble,” said Eleanor with compassion. “Chester, that was dreadful!”

“Yes, she is a good woman,” said Chester and then reached out for the key that the old woman had brought.

“Mrs. Hawley,” he said, “we feel it keenly that you should have felt it necessary to leave your own work and go to the farm. I wish I had known. I’m very sorry to have put this on you when you had enough trouble of your own.”

“Oh, that’s all right. It was good for a change to run over, and Jim, he was that fidgety; till I did I couldn’t get nothin’ else done.”

“Well, we’re deeply grateful, and we’ll come over to see Jim and shall hope to be able to return your kindness, as soon as we get ourselves settled.”

They started on again, leaving the old woman holding the lantern high over her head, peering after them through the snow.

“Oh, Chester! What are we going to do? Won’t the house be fearfully cold?”

“We’ll soon have it warm if the fires are laid. She’s a faithful soul. Fancy her toiling around laying fires for us! I’m sorry it turned out this way, Eleanor, for your sake. I wanted you to see the house first under pleasant circumstances. But it can’t be helped now, and we are lucky to get here before the snow gets any deeper, I guess. I’ve been rather worried the last hour or so.”

With that he turned the car with a lurch suddenly straight to the right and plunged into the deepest, darkest road that Eleanor had ever experienced. There seemed no opening in the thick growth of trees. She wondered how her husband knew where the trail was.