The Mystery of the Pilgrim Trading Post. Anne Molloy

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       UNWILLING VISITORS

      “Come on, you young ones, hop aboard. We’ll do our getting acquainted on the way home,” Cousin Mary Peter Tibbetts called from the driver’s seat of her old car.

      Two boys and a girl had just filed down from the high, aluminum-sided bus at the filling-station stop. They were the only passengers for this town far down the Maine coast; the rest would go on to the next stop across the Canadian border. Now, stiff from hours of riding and somewhat bewildered in the bright sunshine, they walked toward their cousin’s car.

      The new arrivals from Boston were thirteen-year-old twins, Will and Lettie Dennis, and their cousin, Jonas Wingate. Although the twins had looked forward to meeting Jonas this morning, they had disliked him from the first. And they felt from the tone of his few words on the trip that, although they were cousins and of the same age, he disliked them.

      Cousin Mary Peter beckoned them on gently. Her car doors were waiting open like the spread wings of a bird.

      “Come on, stow your gear in back there; plenty of room, especially for such small bags. They don’t look half big enough for folks that have come to stay all summer,” she said. Her voice was a bit gruff but her blue eyes were kind.

      Will and Lettie exchanged glances that meant, doesn’t she know we came for a week’s trial, that we don’t have to stay if we can’t stand the place? As for Jonas’s feelings about this visit, they couldn’t read his face. So far it had worn but one expression, that of scorn for everything they had seen together from the crooked streets of Boston to the Maine countryside.

      “Sit any way you want,” Cousin Mary Peter invited, “but be sure to slam the doors hard. They jiggle open in nothing flat on these rough roads.”

      Will climbed into the front seat by Cousin Mary Peter. He knew without looking that Lettie was scowling at being in the back with Jonas. The car doors banged. Then, with a roar and a lurch, the car shot out into the main street. The town was so small that they were soon among open fields. They were green and rolling, returning to the wilderness for the most part, and sprinkled with daisies, buttercups, and the red-orange of Indian paintbrush. Beyond were the peaked tops of evergreens that continued on and on as far as the eye could see. It was hard not to believe that they didn’t stretch straight to the Arctic Circle.

      “Why would anyone want to shoot for the moon when they can come here? It’s just as lonesome.” Although Jonas spoke low so his older cousin wouldn’t hear, his tone was scornful.

      “Sorry to drag you off before you could even get a look at the town, but the bus was quite late and I’ve got folks waiting back home and along the way, too, for prescriptions,” Cousin Mary Peter explained. “I’m sure you’ve been told that I’m the village druggist and sometimes what amounts to the doctor. There’s none for miles.”