The Associate Hermits. Stockton Frank Richard

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      Near the hotel was an elderly gentleman walking up and down by himself, and on the piazza were the rest of the guests he had seen at the table; not very many of them, for it was early in the season.

      Mr. Archibald now turned his eyes again to the sky. It was still beautiful, although its colors were fading, and after a time he looked back towards his wife. She was now talking to the two elderly ladies on the bench, and Margery was engaged in conversation with the girl with the plait down her back.

      “When I finish my cigar,” thought Mr. Archibald, “I will go myself and take a stroll.” And it struck him that he might talk to the old gentleman, who was still walking up and down in front of the hotel. After contemplating the tops of some forest trees against the greenish-yellow of the middle sky, he turned his eyes again towards his wife, and found that the two elderly ladies had made room for her on the bench, that the tennis-game had ceased, and that one of the girls in blue flannel had joined this group and was talking to Margery.

      In a few moments all the ladies on the bench rose, and Mrs. Archibald and one of them walked slowly towards an opening in the woods. The other lady followed with the little girl, and Margery and the young woman in blue walked in the same direction, but not in company with the rest of the party. The two young men, with the other tennis-player between them, walked over from the tennis-court and joined the first group, and they all stopped just as they reached the woods. There they stood and began talking to each other, after which one of the young men and the young woman approached a large tree, and he poked with a stick into what was probably a hole near its roots, and Mr. Archibald supposed that the discussion concerned a snake-hole or a hornets’ nest. Then Margery and the other young woman came up, and they looked at the hole. Now the whole company walked into the woods and disappeared. In about ten minutes Mr. Archibald finished his cigar and was thinking of following his wife and Margery, when the two elderly ladies and Mrs. Archibald came out into the open and walked towards the hotel. Then came the little girl, running very fast as she passed the tree with the hole near its roots. In a few minutes Mrs. Archibald stopped and looked back towards the woods; then she walked a little way in that direction, leaving her companions to go to the hotel. Now the young man in the bicycle suit emerged from the woods, with a girl in dark-blue flannel on each side of him.

      “Upon my word!” exclaimed Mr. Archibald, and rising to his feet, advanced towards his wife; but before he reached her, Margery emerged from the wood road, escorted by the young man in the summer suit.

      “Upon my word,” Mr. Archibald remarked, this time to his wife, “that ward of ours is not given to wasting time.”

      “It seems so, truly,” said she, “and I think her mother was right when she called her a creature of impulse. Let us wait here until they come up. We must all go in; it is getting chilly.”

      In a few minutes Margery and the young man had reached them.

      “Thank you very much,” said this creature of impulse to her escort. “My uncle and aunt will take care of me now. Aunt Harriet and Uncle Archibald, this is Mr. Clyde. He saw a great snake go into a hole over there just before supper-time, and I think we ought all to be very careful how we pass that way.”

      “I don’t think there is very much danger after nightfall,” said Mr. Clyde, who was a pleasant youth with brown hair, “and to-morrow I’ll see if I can kill him. It’s a bad place for a snake to have a hole, just where ladies would be apt to take their walks.”

      “I don’t think the snake will trouble us much,” said Mrs. Archibald, “for we leave to-morrow. Still, it would be a good thing to kill it.”

      After this there were a few remarks made about snakes, and then Mr. Clyde bade them good-evening.

      “How in the world, Margery,” said Mrs. Archibald, “did you get acquainted so quickly with that young man – and who is he?”

      “Oh, it all happened quite naturally,” said she. “As we turned to go out of the woods he was the gentleman nearest to me, and so of course he came with me. Those two girls are sisters, and their name is Dodworth. They introduced Mr. Clyde and the other gentleman, Mr. Raybold, to me. But that was after you had been talking to Mrs. Dodworth, their mother, who is Mr. Raybold’s aunt. The other lady, with the shawl on, is Mrs. Henderson, and – would you believe it? – she’s grandmother to that girl in the short dress! She doesn’t begin to look old enough. The Dodworths don’t go into camp at all, but expect to stay here for two weeks longer, and then they go to the sea-shore. Mrs. Henderson leaves day after to-morrow.

      “Mr. Clyde and his friend live in Boston. They are both just beginning to practise law, though Mr. Clyde says that Mr. Raybold would rather be an actor, but his family objects. The old gentleman who is walking up and down in front of the hotel has heart-disease, some people say – but that is not certain. He stayed here all last summer, and perhaps he will this year. In two weeks hardly any of the people now in this hotel will be here. One family is going into camp when the father and two sons come on to join them, and the rest are going to the sea-shore, except one lady. You may have noticed her – the one with a dark-purple dress and a little purple cap. She’s a school-teacher, and she will spend the rest of the summer with her sister in Pennsylvania.

      “That man Phil Matlack, who is going with us to-morrow, is quite a character, and I expect I shall like him awfully. They say that about five years ago he killed a man who made an attack on him in the woods, but he was never tried for it, nor was anything whatever done to him, because Mr. Sadler said he was right, and he would not have any nonsense about it. There are people about here who believe that Phil Matlack would fight a bear single-handed if it happened to be necessary. Mr. Sadler would do it himself if he could walk. Nobody knows how many men he killed when he was fighting Indians; and, would you believe it? his wife is a plain, little, quiet woman, who lives in some part of the hotel where nobody ever sees her, because she is rather bashful and dislikes company.

      “The other person who is going with us is not very much more than a boy, though they say he is very strong and a good hunter. His name is Martin Sanders, and I forgot to say that the old gentleman with the heart-disease is named Parker.

      “It’s generally thought that Phil Matlack would rather have some one else than Martin Sanders to go with him, because he says Martin knows too much. The fact is that Martin is well educated, and could have gone into some good business, but he was so fond of the woods that he gave up everything to come out here and learn guiding. You know we were told that our camp in the woods has three rooms in it? Well, it really has four, for there was an artist there last year who built a little room for a studio for rainy days. I expect Mr. Sadler forgot that, or didn’t think it worth counting. There are no snakes at all where we are going to camp, but two miles farther on there are lots of them.”

      “Over the brink of Niagara,” interjected Mr. Archibald, “they say eighteen million cubic feet of water pour every minute. Where on earth, Margery, did you fill your mind with all that information?”

      “I got it from those two Dodworth girls and Mr. Clyde,” said she. “Mr. Raybold told me some things, too, but mostly about his bicycle. He feels badly about it, because he brought it here, and now he finds there is no place to use it. I should think he ought to have known that the primeval forest isn’t any place for a bicycle.”

      “Mr. Archibald,” said Mrs. Archibald, when they had retired to their room, “I did not agree with you when you wished we could have started for camp to-day, but now I am quite of your mind.”

      Tuesday was fine, and preparations were made for the Archibald party to start for their camp after an early luncheon.

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