15. Home Again
Kit arrived in Nantic a little past noon in the middle of the first snow storm of the winter. She was so glad to see Mr. Briggs’s smiling face on the platform, that she almost threw her arms around him, as she jumped from the platform of the train.
“Well, well,” he said, “didn’t expect to see you around so soon, Kit.”
“It’s good to be back, Mr. Briggs,” said Kit, as she looked around for the one taxi that Nantic had. She had not told her family just when she was arriving, so no one was there to meet her. She located the cab and after a hurried goodbye to Mr. Briggs she got in and was soon on the way up the familiar highway.
There was none of the family in sight when they turned up the drive, but suddenly Kit’s eager eyes saw a familiar figure out by the barn, and leaning forward she gave a shrill whistle.
Tommy turned in the direction of the whistle and when he saw who it was he came along the drive at a dead run. Before Kit could catch her breath, the big front door opened and there was the rest of the family. The reunion was indeed a happy one, everyone laughing and talking at once and deluging Kit with questions. It wasn’t until they were all settled in the living-room that Kit obligingly answered all their questions, telling them about Delphi, Hope College, the friends she had made, and last of all, the secret she and Uncle Bart had discovered in the Egyptian urn.
After the Christmas holidays when Jean had gone back to New York again, Kit found her opportunity of laying her summer plan before her mother and father. She had discarded hogs for a new idea she had thought up on the train coming home. Before Jean had left, Kit had told her about her scheme and together they had worked out the details. With Jean’s additional suggestions in mind, Kit felt she was ready to approach her parents.
“There are acres and acres here that we never use at all. All that wonderful land on both sides of the river up through the valley, and the two islands besides. What I thought we could do was this, if you could just let us kids manage it. Couldn’t we start a regular summer camp? You know those hunters’ cabins that are scattered along the valley would be ideal. Jean was telling me before she left about an artists’ colony up in the Catskills, where they have cabins fitted up so that you can cook in them and everything. I’m sure we could do it here.”
It had taken much argument and figuring on paper before the consent of both was won, but Becky approved of the scheme highly.
“Land alive, Margaret,” she exclaimed, “don’t crush anything that looks like budding initiative in your children. I’d let them put cabins all over the place until it blossomed like the wilderness. There’s a stack of old furniture up in the attic at Maple Grove and over at our place, too, and they’re welcome to it. Get some cans of paint and go to work, Kit.”
Kit acted immediately on the suggestion and drove up with Tommy and Jack to look over the collection of discarded furniture. What she liked best of all were the three-drawer, old-fashioned chests and handmade wooden chairs. There were several old single bedsteads, too.
“We’re going to paint them all over, Mom, and Tommy and Jack promised to put up any shelves or things like that we may need.”
“Don’t forget that they’ll have to eat sometime,” Becky reminded. “Get some two-burner oil stoves and folding tables. Lay in a stock of candles and lamps. I’d make them bring up their own bedding if I were you, because that would be the only nuisance you’d have to contend with.”
“It’s too bad,” Kit said, “that we’re so far away from any kind of stores. There are eight cabins altogether, and there’ll be ever so many things people will want to buy. Do you suppose, Mother, that Mr. Peckham would let Lucy manage anything like that up here? She’s just dying to do something besides housework all her life.”
“But where would you put her, dear?”
“I’ll bet the boys down there at the mill could throw together a perfectly swell little shack. They could either have it down by the mill or put it right here at the crossroads. Lucy could put in all kinds of supplies, films for cameras and post cards and candy.”
“Better put in a few canned goods, too, and staples,” add Becky. “I declare, I’d kind of like to have a hand in that myself. Kit, I do believe you’ve started something that may wake this town up.”
Kit herself attacked the problem of winning over the Peckhams to her idea of Lucy’s taking charge of a little store at the crossroads. Lucy sat with wide anxious eyes on the extreme edge of her chair, while her mother said over and over again it was utterly impossible.
“Why, I couldn’t get along without Lucy, especially in the summer, with all the fruit to put up and the young ones home from school.”
“But, Mrs. Peckham,” pleaded Kit, “when you were our age, wasn’t there ever anything that you wanted to do or be with all your heart and soul? Didn’t you ever just want to get away from what you had been doing for years, and start something new?”
“Well, come to think of it now,” smiled Mrs. Peckham, “I’d have given my eye-teeth to have left home and gone to be a teacher in some town.”
“Then please let Lucy do this. Becky says she’s willing to keep an eye on everything, and one of us girls will probably be helping her out most of the time, too. It would only be until the middle of September, and Anne’s fifteen and Charlotte’s twelve. Why, it isn’t fair to them to let them think all Lucy’s good for is to stay at home and do housework. You will let her go, won’t you, Mrs. Peckham?”
Mrs. Peckham sighed and smiled. “You’re a fearfully good pleader. I don’t suppose it would hurt the other girls any to take hold and help. I’m willing, and if her father is, why, she can go. Seems to me you are starting something you can’t finish, but maybe you can.”
The first part of April was unusually mild. A sort of balmy hush seemed to lie over the barren land, as though spring had chosen to steal upon it sleeping. On one of these warm spring days Kit, Doris, Tommy, and Jack went out to inspect the cabins to see if they needed repairing. Matt had promised to help them mend any leaking roofs and replace rotten boards, but except for two of them, they seemed to be in excellent condition. The furniture had all been scraped and painted and almost daily something was added to the store of supplies for the summer venture. The next problem to be solved was finding the occupants for the cabins, and here it was Jean who helped out.
“You don’t want to get a lot of people,” she wrote, “who will be expecting all the comforts of a typical summer resort, so I suggest my spreading the word among the art students here. They are sure to pass it along to their friends.”
When Jean came home to stay the end of May, the first thing she asked was, “Who do you suppose wants to rent one of our cabins for the whole summer?”
“Ralph McRae,” Kit replied immediately.
“But how did you know?” asked Jean. She had thought it would be a surprise.
“I knew he would be back this summer to see you,” she replied knowingly. “Besides, Buzzy wrote me the news last week, and I’ve reserved the pick of the cabins for him. You know the one down by the river just above the Falls? And Becky told me yesterday that she was positive Billie and Frank would come down for a while in July or August.”
“That’s wonderful,” Jean said, enthusiastically.
“But that isn’t all,” Kit went on. “I had a letter from Uncle Bart. And do you know what he said? He received a substantial sum of money from the Archeological Research Foundation for his work in deciphering the contents of the Amenotaph urn. He doesn’t need the money, he says, and because I helped him open the urn, he sent it to me.”
“Golly, what will you do with it?” Jean asked.
“I wrote him last winter, just after I returned, about our plans for running a camp this summer and he was terribly interested in it. He wants me to pay Dad back the amount he gave us for repairing the cabins and the paint and other things we had to buy. I did and now the camp is really our own business venture. If we don’t make a go of it, it will be our loss and not Dad’s.”