The Key Note. Burnham Clara Louise

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ said Genevieve. "Folks had said so a long time and heard awful queer noises up there, but Mr. Gayne was the first who really seen the spook."

      "I'm not surprised that he had a visitor," said Veronica. "Dollars to doughnuts, it had horns and hoofs and a tail."

      "That's what Uncle Zip said," remarked Genevieve. "He said 't wa'n't anything but an old stray white cow."

      Veronica laughed, and her aunt met her mischievous look with an impressive shake of the head. "Mind me, now," she said, and Veronica did not pursue the subject.

      The long porch across the front of the Inn made, sometimes a sunny, and sometimes a foggy, meeting-place for the members of the family. It boasted a hammock and some weather-beaten chairs, and Miss Myrna Emerson was not tardy in discovering the one of these which offered the most comfort. She was a lady of uncertain age and certain ideas. One of the latter was that it was imperative that she should be comfortable.

      "I should think Miss Burridge would have some decent chairs here," she said one morning, dilating her thin nostrils with displeasure as she took possession of the most hopeful of the seats.

      The remark was addressed to Diana who was perched on the piazza rail.

      "Doubtless they will be added," she said, "should Miss Burridge find that her undertaking proves sufficiently remunerative."

      "She charges enough, so far as that goes," declared Miss Emerson curtly, but finding the chair unexpectedly comfortable, she settled back and complained no further.

      Philip was out on the grass painting on a long board the words "Ye Wayside Inn." Herbert Gayne stood watching him listlessly. His uncle was stretched in the hammock. Mrs. Lowell came out upon the porch. Mr. Gayne moved reluctantly, but he did arise. Men usually did exert themselves at the advent of this tall, slender lady with the radiant smile and laughing eyes.

      "Perhaps you would like the hammock, Mrs. Lowell," he said perfunctorily.

      "Offer it to me some time later in the day," she responded pleasantly, and he tumbled back into the couch with obvious relief.

      Mrs. Lowell approached the rail and observed Philip's labors.

      "Where are you going to hang that sign?" she asked in her charming voice. "Across the front of the house, I judge."

      "Oh, no," replied Philip. "We can't hope to attract the fish. I am going to hang it at the back where Bill Lindsay's flivver will feel the lure before it gets here."

      "Across the back of the house," cried Miss Emerson in alarm. "I hope nowhere near my window."

      "The sign will depend from iron rings," explained Diana.

      "I know they'll squeak," said Miss Emerson positively; "and if they do, Mr. Barrison, you'll simply have to take it down."

      No one replied to this warning. So Miss Emerson dilated her nostrils again with an air of determination and leaned back in her chair.

      The eyes of both Mrs. Lowell and Diana were upon the young boy whose watching face betrayed no inspiration from the fresh morning. He had an ungainly, neglected appearance from his rough hair to his worn shoes. His clothes were partially outgrown and shabby.

      "Bert," called his uncle from the hammock. The boy looked up. "Come here. Don't you hear me?" The boy started toward the piazza steps with a shuffling gait.

      "You're slower than molasses in January," said Mr. Gayne lazily. "Go up to my room and get my field-glasses. They're on the dresser, I think."

      Without a word the boy went into the house and Diana and Mrs. Lowell exchanged a look. Each was hoping the messenger would be successful and not draw upon himself a reprimand from the dark, impatient man smoking in the hammock.

      The boy returned empty-handed. "They – they weren't there," he said.

      "Weren't where, stu – " Mr. Gayne encountered Mrs. Lowell's gaze as he was in the middle of his epithet. Her eyes were not laughing now, and he restrained himself. "Weren't on the dresser, do you mean?" he continued in a quieter tone. "Well, didn't you look about any?"

      "Yes, sir. I looked on the – the trunk and on the – the floor."

      Mr. Gayne emitted an inarticulate sound which, but for the presence of the ladies, would evidently have been articulate. "Oh, well," he groaned, rising to a sitting posture on the side of the hammock, "I suppose I shall have to galvanize my old bones and go after them myself."

      His nephew's blank look did not change. He stood as if awaiting further orders, and his listless eyes met Mrs. Lowell's kindly gaze.

      "It is good fun to look through field-glasses in a place like this, isn't it, Bertie?" she said.

      The boy's surprise at being addressed was evident. "I – I don't know," he replied.

      His uncle laughed. "That's all the answer you'll ever get out of him, Mrs. Lowell. He's the champion don't-know-er."

      The boy's blank look continued the same. It was evident that his uncle's description of him was nothing new.

      "I don't believe that," said Mrs. Lowell. "I think Bertie and I are going to be friends. I like boys."

      The look she was giving the lad as she spoke seemed for a moment to attract his attention.

      "You won't – you won't like me," he said in his usual wooden manner.

      "Children and fools," laughed his uncle, rising from the hammock.

      "Mr. Gayne!" exclaimed Diana, electrified out of her customary serenity.

      The man's restless, dark eyes glanced quickly from the face of one woman to another, even alighting upon Miss Emerson whose countenance only gave its usual indication that the lady had just detected a very unpleasant odor.

      He laughed again, good-naturedly, and as he passed his nephew gave him a careless, friendly pat on the shoulder. The unexpected touch startled the boy and made him cringe.

      "Bert believes honesty is the best policy," he said. "Don't you, Bert?"

      "Yes, sir," replied the boy automatically.

      "Sit down here a minute, won't you, Bertie?" asked Mrs. Lowell, making a place beside her on the piazza rail. The boy obeyed. "Have you ever seen this great ocean before?"

      "No. Yes. I don't know."

      "Why, yes, you do know, of course," said Mrs. Lowell, with a soft little laugh, very intimate and pleasant. "You know whether you have seen the ocean before."

      The boy regarded her, and in the surprise of being really challenged to think, he meditated.

      "No," he said, at last. "I've never been here before."

      "Isn't it a beautiful place?" asked Mrs. Lowell.

      "I don't know," returned the boy after a hesitation. Then he looked down on the grass at Philip.

      "Do you want to go back and watch Mr. Barrison paint?"

      "Yes."

      "All right. Run along. We'll talk some other time."

      The boy СКАЧАТЬ