CHAPTER V
BIRD'S-NEST
"Joshua Leavitt was Justin's son and he married Abigail Clark over at Isle Le Motte, and they had three sons, Joshua and John and Jacob, all upright, settled young men. Let me see, it was either John or Jacob was killed in the war of 1812, wasn't it, B'lindy?"
Nancy's mind was working faster than the knitting needles in her fingers. For three days now she had sat very close to Aunt Sabrina, learning "all about the Leavitts."
"It's lucky I have a good head for history," she said to herself, nodding to show Aunt Sabrina that she was deeply interested in these Joshuas and Johns and Jacobs. "If I'm here long enough she may get down to the present generation! Joshua—John—Jacob," she repeated softly.
"Dear me, where is B'lindy? My memory isn't as good as it used to be. I'm growing to be an old woman. But the Bible in there tells how either John or Jacob fell at Fort Niagara. The Leavitts have always been brave men—and men of honor!"
At this point Nancy, quite involuntarily, dropped a stitch. The sudden color that flushed her cheeks escaped Aunt Sabrina's notice, for B'lindy's voice came suddenly through the open door.
"Miss Sabriny, if Jon'than don't get that cornstarch from Eaton's there won't be no cornstarch puddin' for dinner. He's worse than no good round the house and a body takes more steps huntin' him than doin' all his chores for him!"
Nancy sprang to her feet. "Oh, please let me find him! I—I'd love to walk around a bit, too. I'll speak very sternly, B'lindy—you just see if he doesn't go at once!" Tossing her red wool into the cushion of the old rocker she had been occupying, Nancy was off before the astonished B'lindy or Aunt Sabrina could utter a protest.
She found Jonathan at his everlasting digging. Nancy shook him playfully by the arm. Jonathan could not guess that her eyes were bright because, for a few moments at least, she had escaped from the oppressiveness of Aunt Sabrina and her ancestors; his old heart warmed to her infectious smile.
"B'lindy's as cross as can be! She must have the cornstarch at once! I hate cornstarch pudding worse than poison, but you must hurry as fast as you can, and please go by the lilac side of the house, because Miss Sabrina is sitting over on the hollyhock porch talking ancestors and I want her to think that it's taking me forever to find you!"
"Cornstarch! Bless my boots!" A hundred wrinkles crossed the weather beaten old face. "I'll go off to Eaton's fast's ever I can, Missy."
"Nice Jonathan," and picking a posy, Nancy stuck it into the buttonhole of the gardener's sweater. "And I'm going fast's ever I can, straight out to the lake."
With a wave of her hand she flew down the path through the row of old apple trees. She wanted to shout and to sing, but as that might startle the entire island, she indulged in a joyous handspring instead!
"Of course, Anne, darling, if you could see me you'd look shocked—you'd say, 'Nancy Leavitt, when are you going to grow up!' But, Annie, if growing up and up and up is going to be to grow like your Aunt Sabrina, sitting all the day long dwelling on the glories that are past and gone—never—never—never!" The girl flung her arms out toward the blue waters of the lake. "If I had a wish I'd wish that I could swim straight out across you—to those purple mountains—over there!"
It was very still in the orchard; cool, too, for the hot June sun only penetrated in spots the outspreading branches of the old trees. Gradually the tumult of longing in Nancy's mind quieted; a sense of delicious quiet inspired her.
"It's heavenly here—just as though I was all alone in the world." She turned slowly around. Not a glimpse of any habitation could be seen, the rows of trees hid even Happy House. And beyond was the stretch of sparkling water, with its rim of hazy, purple hills.
Nancy ran to the apple tree nearest the cliff. It was very old, its branches grew close to the ground. In a moment she had climbed them and had perched herself comfortably upon one with her back resting against another.
"It must be nice to be a bird," she mused, touching lightly the glossy leaves about her. "Playing in tree-tops and when you're bored to death, simply flying off without so much as an excuse! Or a wood-nymph," wistfully. Then her drooping shoulder suddenly straightened, under the stimulation of an idea. She sprang to the ground. "Oh, rapture!" she cried, and raced back toward Happy House.
Half an hour later Jonathan, having made peace with B'lindy, found her in the old carriage house. Two shiny nails protruding from her teeth and a hammer in her hands betrayed that she had found his tool-box. Her face, through smudges of dust, wore a look of determination.
"You've come just in time to help me, Jonathan. I must get the top of this box off and fasten it to that box—so it'll open and shut. Then you must find a piece of leather for hinges and some oil cloth. I think that you have everything on earth hidden in this place—except carriages!"
Because, with Jonathan, it had been love at first sight, he obeyed with only a "well, well, Missy." With the boards of one box he made a snug door for the other box and he found, hidden away, some precious leather that could be cut into strips for hinges, and a square of oil cloth and canvas, too. There were more nails in the tool-box, and though old Jonathan guarded that tool-box like a treasure-chest, he'd give Nancy anything it held!
They labored feverishly, and within an hour Nancy declared their work done.
"Now come with me, Jonathan, and I'll show you my secret." She lifted the box and started toward the orchard, Jonathan trudging after her.
When they reached the last tree near the cliff Nancy set her burden down. She turned to her companion with a solemn face.
"Jonathan, no one is going to know this secret but you and me! I am a dramatist. You don't look as though you knew what that was, but it is something that it's very, very hard to be, and I shall have to work—like everything! Right up on the branch of that tree is where I'm going to work. I want you to take those nails I put in your pocket and fasten this box securely to the trunk of the tree. Then I'm going to keep all my things right in it and fasten it with this padlock I—borrowed—from your tool-box. It'll be just like a nest—and I'll steal out here and work and work and then, some day, when I'm famous, all the newspapers will print a story telling how I wrote my first play in an apple tree and that it was a secret between you and me, and they'll want your picture! Now, right here, Jonathan. I'll hold it and you nail it tight."
Jonathan didn't know what a dramatist was, but he did know that his "little Missy," perched on the old branch, was as pretty as any bird and her eyes as bright as the sunshine that filtered through the leaves of the tree.
"Oh, that's just fine," cried Nancy, springing to the ground to survey their work. "It's as safe as can be and you've helped me a lot, you dear old thing, you. Now we must hurry home or B'lindy's dinner will be cold and remember, cross your heart, this is a solemn, solemn secret!"
She drew her fingers across his worn, gray sweater, and he nodded in acceptance of the mysterious sign. And as he followed her back through the orchard to the house something within his breast seemed to sing the way it did each spring when he found the first crocus peeping up through the frosty earth.
Nancy found it difficult to keep from bolting through her dinner. But a tiny sense of guilt at having left "Joshua and Jacob" so abruptly made her very attentive to Aunt Sabrina's long story of how the blue china was first brought to Happy House.
Scarcely had Miss Sabrina's door closed upon her for her hour of rest, however, than Nancy flew to her own room. She gathered up her precious paper and pencils, a knife and a worn manuscript case, a few favorite books and a tattered dictionary, and started out on tip-toe through the hall toward the stairs. But, though her step was light, its sound caught a certain patient ear nearby.
"Nancy! Oh, Nancy!"
Nancy remembered, then, remorsefully, that not once that day had she run in to see poor little Aunt Milly. With her treasures in her arms she went straight to her. In the smile that greeted her from the couch by the window, there was not one sign to indicate that Aunt Milly had been waiting the whole long morning for her to come.
"I've been so busy," explained Nancy, dropping her load. "I have a mind to tell you, Aunt Milly. I meant it to be a secret, only Jonathan knows, because he had to help me. And I'd like you to know, too. Anyway, a secret's more fun when more of us know it! You see, I'd gotten as far as Jacob in my lessons on Leavitts, and then Aunt Sabrina couldn't remember whether it was he or his brother that was killed in the war of 1812, and B'lindy rudely interrupted just because she had no corn starch! Oh, Aunt Milly, I'm dreadful, but I couldn't have stood it another minute—I could have hugged B'lindy and her pudding! Why, I've sat for three days straight in a horrible stiff chair listening to musty, dusty tales, and I wanted to scream! So I said I'd find Jonathan and I bolted—and I stayed away! And out in the orchard, right close to the bank, the grandest idea came to me. To fix a nest! And Jonathan helped me. We made a little box, all waterproof, and nailed it to the tree to keep my things in—these," indicating the pile at her feet. "And I'm going to hide there—and work! And that's another secret. I'm writing a play! I wrote two in college and the English professor said they were unusual and the Senior class gave one. And I have a real one, almost done. Now you know the secret."
"Oh, Nancy!" said Aunt Milly softly, two bright spots of color on her cheeks.
"You see I can steal out there and sit on that comfy branch and think I'm all alone in the world. Such beautiful thoughts will come to me! It'll be like a bird's nest."
"Oh, Nancy," Aunt Milly said again, with a tragic look in her eyes that the youthful Nancy could not read. "I wish I could see you there—just once! Are the trees big, dear? And is the grass real green?" There was a little tremble in the sweet voice. "Seems to me it used to be ploughed up 'round the apple trees."
Over Nancy rushed the heartbreaking thought that poor Miss Milly had not seen the orchard for years and years. She threw both arms about the frail form. With a torrent of words she pictured the raspberry patch, old Jonathan's lettuce and radishes and beets and beans and slender cornstalks working up through the soft earth, and the giant apple trees beyond, the lake "just like diamonds sprinkled over sapphire blue velvet" and the purple hills in the background. And all the while she talked, Nancy felt little quivers passing through the form she held.
"It—isn't—fair!" she ended, enigmatically. She sat still for a moment, staring at Miss Milly. With her bright color Aunt Milly didn't look at all like a helpless invalid. "Maybe——" began Nancy, then stopped short. She rose abruptly to her feet. "I've got an idea that beats my bird's-nest all to pieces! I can't tell you now because you'd be frightened to death, but it's going to be wonderful! Let me hide this truck under your couch and now be very, very good until I come back. I must find B'lindy at once."
Nancy, fired by her sudden purpose, interrupted B'lindy in the last of her "drying up" and demanded to know where she could find Mr. Webb. When B'lindy "'lowed she wa'n't his keeper, but he's most al'las hangin' 'round the smithy or Eaton's or the post-office or the hotel, 'cept when you wanted him, and then he wa'n't hangin' 'round nowhere," Nancy started off down the path, bareheaded.
Fortune favored her, for Mr. Webb was "hangin' round the smithy and very delighted to see Miss Anne!" He had been wondering a lot about the coming of the girl to Happy House. "Somethin' sure to come of it," he had reflected again and again.
Of course, he assured Nancy, he'd do anything he could for her. And Nancy was sure they might find all that they needed right there in the smithy.
"It must be very comfortable and have some springs—and be safe, too. And if you can find some wheels with rubber tires—off an old baby carriage, they'll run more smoothly. And the seat must be big enough for a lady—but she's a small lady!"
Jonathan thought he "caught her idee. Old Mrs. King, over at North Hero, couldn't walk a step 'count of rheumatism, and she had a rig-up such as Nancy was describing." Yes, Timothy Hopkins at the smithy had most every kind of a thing about and he'd see what he could do, and Miss Anne could run down in the morning, early, before the stage started for North Hero.
"And, Webb," Nancy levelled her sweetest smile, "don't even try to think whom it's for—it's a secret."