6. “The Boy’s” Arrival
Mr. Craig had answered the first letter from Delphi, under Kit’s careful supervision, and the acceptance was vague enough to please her.
It aroused no suspicions whatever in the minds of Dean Peabody or Aunt Della. The only question was, who was to meet the child in Chicago. The through express would leave him there, and in order to connect with the Wisconsin trains it was necessary to make the change over to the Northwestern Depot.
Della was far more perturbed over it than her brother. Having set in motion the coming guest, he believed firmly that an unfaltering Fate would direct his footsteps safely to Delphi. Barton Cato Peabody had been peculiar all his life. He had been a strange boy, unsettled, studious, impractical. Miss Della was his younger sister, and ever since her youth had tried to give him all the love and encouragement that others refused. She had followed him faithfully and happily on all of his exploring expeditions. Perhaps one reason why these had been so successful was because she had always managed to surround him with home comforts, even in the wilds of the upper Nile.
And perhaps the quaintest thing about it all was that Della herself, no matter on what particular point of the globe she had happened to pitch her tent, had always retained her courage, although she had faced dangers that the average woman would have fled from.
Their house stood on the same hill as Hope College, the highest point in the rising ridge of bluffs along the Lake Shore at Delphi. It was built of dark red brick, a square house with long French windows. A grove of pine trees almost hid it from view on its street side, the stately Norway pines that Kit loved. The back of the house looked directly out over the lake, and the land here was frankly left to nature. Trees, grass, and underbrush rioted at will, until they suddenly ended on the brow of the bluff, where there was a sheer drop to the beach. Looking at it from below, Kit afterwards thought it was like a miniature section of the Yosemite; the sand had hardened into fantastic shapes, and the rock strata in places was plainly visible.
Mrs. Craig’s telegram arrived the night before Kit herself. It was brief and noncommittal. “Kit arrives Union Station, Chicago, Thursday, 10:22 A.M.”
“Kit,” repeated the Dean. “Humph! Nickname. Superfluous and derogatory.”
Della took the telegram from his desk with a little smile that was almost tremulous with excitement. “It’s probably the diminutive for Christopher, Bart,” she said. “I think it’s a nice name. I always liked the legend of St. Christopher. Somebody’ll have to meet him down in Chicago. He might lose his head and take the wrong train.”
“He’s about sixteen, isn’t he? Old enough to change from one train to another, and use his tongue if he’s in doubt. When I was sixteen, Della, I was earning my own living working on a farm summers, and going to a school in the winter where we all had to work for our board. Never hurt us a bit. The greatest trait of character you can instill in a child is self-reliance.”
Della had a little way of appearing to listen while her brother expounded on any of his favorite subjects. It had grown to be a habit with her, and she had a way of answering absently, “Yes, dear, I’m quite sure of it,” which always satisfied him that he had her attention. But now, she sat looking out the window and thinking, a perplexed expression on her face.
It had not altogether been her desire that the coming child should be a boy, although not one word had she breathed of this to Dean Peabody. The determination to take one of the Craig children had been a sudden one. The Dean had been reading somebody’s theory about the obligations of age to youth.
“Della, my dear,” he had remarked one evening, as the two sat quietly in the old library, “we have been leading very narrow, selfish lives, and we will suffer for it as we grow older. We have shut ourselves away from youth. I am seventy-four now, and what heritage am I leaving to the world beyond a few books of reference, and my collections? What I should do is to take some child, still in the impressionable stage, and impart to it all I know.”
Della glanced up with a little amused twinkle in her eyes. “But, Bart, what about the child? Surely you would require an exceptional child for such an experiment. One who would have the mentality to grasp all that you were trying to impart to it.”
The Dean thought this over, pursing his lips and tapping his knuckles with his rimless glasses. “Possibly,” he granted, “and yet, Della, surely there would be far more credit attached to planting the seed of knowledge where it needed much cultivating. It has surprised and amazed me up at the college to find that usually the children who appreciate an education are the farmer boys, and very often the foreign element.”
Della rocked to and fro gently. She knew her brother well enough to understand that this had become a fixed idea with him, and the easiest way out was to find him an impressionable child. And then, it happened that she thought of Thomas Craig, their nephew, and all his children. She remembered having one letter after the breaking up of the home on Long Island.
“You know what I think, Bart,” began Della in the bright, abrupt way she had, “I think it would be the right thing if we took one of the Craig children. There are four or five of them—”
“Boys or girls?” interrupted the Dean.
“Well, now I’m not quite sure, but if my memory serves me, I think there’s a boy among them. I know the eldest one is a girl. They’re all of them over ten, I’m sure. Why don’t you just write to Thomas and make known your willingness? I am sure they would take it in the spirit in which it was offered.”
So this was how it happened that the Dean’s letter went forth to Elmhurst, and produced the hour when Kit stood on the platform of the Union Station in Chicago, looking around her to discover anyone who might appear to be seeking a small boy.
Gradually the long platform that led up to the concourse cleared. Kit went slowly on, following the porter who carried her suitcase. She was looking for someone who might resemble either the Dean or Della from her father’s description of them.
“As I remember him,” Mr. Craig had said, “the Dean was very tall, rather sparely built, but broad-shouldered and always with his head up to the wind. His hair was gray and curly. Aunt Della was like a little bird, a gentle, plump, busy woman, with bright brown eyes and a little smile that never left her lips. I am sure you can’t mistake them, Kit, for in their way they are very distinctive.”
Yet Kit was positive now that neither the Dean nor his sister had come to meet her. She stood in the waiting room wearing a dark brown gabardine coat with a brown hat to match. There was about her an air of buoyant and friendly self-possession, which always endeared her to even casual acquaintances. Therefore it was no wonder that Rex Bellamy glanced at her several times with interest, even while his gaze sought through the crowd for a young New England boy, bound for Delphi, Wisconsin.
But Kit noticed Rex Bellamy. Noticed his alert anxiety as he walked up and down, eyeing every newcomer. He was eighteen or nineteen, and unmistakably looking for someone. Even while Kit watched, she saw a girl of about her own age hurry up to him. Her voice reached Kit plainly, as she said, “I’ve looked up and down that end, and I’m positive he isn’t there. Oh, but the Dean will lecture you, Rex, if you miss him.”
At this identical moment, Rex’s eyes met a pair of dancing, mischievous ones, and Kit crossed over to where they stood.
“I do believe you must be looking for me,” she said. “I’m Kit Craig.”
“Oh, but we were expecting your brother,” exclaimed the other girl, eagerly.
“I know, but you see my brother’s only twelve,” said Kit, “and the family thought he was too young to come. I begged to come instead. I’m afraid the Dean made a little mistake, didn’t he? Do you think he’ll mind so very much when he sees me?”
“Mind?” repeated Rex. “Why, I think he’ll be perfectly delighted. My name is Rex Bellamy, Kit, and this is my sister, Anne. We’re next-door neighbors of the Dean and Miss Della, and as we happened to be coming in town today they asked us to be sure to meet your—” Here he hesitated.
“My brother,” laughed Kit. “Well, here I am, and I only hope that Mother’s letter reached them this morning, explaining everything. Of course, they did write for a boy, and it takes so long for a letter to get out here and be answered, that I told Mom and Dad I knew it would be perfectly all right for me to come instead. Don’t you think it will be?”
Anne’s blue eyes were full of merriment. “Oh, golly,” she exclaimed, “I do wish I could go back with you, so I could see their faces when they find out. Mother and I have been here in Chicago this summer and Rex has been living at home alone. We’ll be back in a week, so I’ll see you then, and anyway, we’re sure to visit back and forth. I’m awfully glad you’re a girl.”
“But I won’t be here all winter,” Kit answered. “I’ve only come for a couple of months. On trial, you see. Maybe it’ll be only a couple of days, if they’re terribly disappointed.” Anne exchanged quick glances with her brother and he smiled as he led the way to the car.
“You don’t know the elaborate plans the Dean has laid out for your education,” he said. “It will take you all winter long to live up to them, but I’m sure he won’t be disappointed.”
Kit had her own opinion about this, still it was impossible for her to feel apprehensive or unhappy, as the car sped over toward the Lake Shore Drive. The newness of everything after two years up in the Elmhurst hills was wonderfully stimulating. But it was not until they had left the city and river behind and had reached Lincoln Park that she really gave vent to her feelings. It was a wonderful day and the lake lay in sparkling ripples beyond the long stretch of shore.
“Are we going all the way in the car?” she asked.
Rex shook his head. “No, only as far as Evanston. We’ll drop Anne off, and have lunch with Mother and then catch the train to Delphi. I have an errand for the Dean out at the University.”
“Gee,” said Kit, “we lived right on the edge of Long Island Sound before we moved up to Connecticut, and ever since I was small I can remember going away somewhere to the seashore every summer, but I think your lake is ever so much more interesting than the ocean. Somehow it seems to belong to you more. I always felt with the ocean as if it just condescended to come over to my special beach, after it had rambled all over the world, and belonged to everybody.”
“But you have all the shells and the seaweed, and we haven’t,” argued Anne. “Before I ever went East, we had a couple of clam shells, just plain everyday round clam shells that had come from Cape May, and I used to think they were perfectly wonderful because they had belonged in the real ocean.”
After the rugged landscape of New England, Kit found this level land very attractive. They passed through one suburb after another, with the beautiful Drive following the curving shoreline out to Evanston. Here she caught her first glimpse of Northwestern University, its buildings showing picturesquely through the beautiful trees around the campus.
They left Rex at the main entrance and drove on to where Mrs. Bellamy was stopping. Mrs. Bellamy was filled with amusement when she heard the story of Kit’s substitution of herself for her brother that the Dean had asked for. She was a tall, slender woman with blonde hair and gray eyes, who seemed almost like an older sister of Anne’s. They were staying in a small apartment near the campus.
Early in the afternoon Rex returned, and they caught the 2:45 local to Delphi. Kit could hardly keep her eyes off the beautiful scenery they were passing through. Every now and then the rich blueness of the lake would flash through the trees in the distance, and to the west there stretched long level fields of prairie-land, dipping ravines that unexpectedly led into woodland. Gradually the bluffs heightened as they neared the Wisconsin line above Waukegan, and just beyond the state line, between the shore and the region of the small lakes, Oconomowoc and Delevan, they came suddenly upon Delphi. It stood high upon the bluff, its college dominating the shady serenity of its quiet avenues.
“The Dean doesn’t keep a car,” said Rex as they walked through the gray stone station. “Besides, he thought I was bringing a boy who would not mind the hike up the hill.”
“I don’t mind a bit,” replied Kit. “I like it. It seems good to find real hills after all. I thought everything out here was just flat. I do hope they won’t be watching for us. It will be ever so much easier if I can just walk in before they get any kind of a shock, don’t you think?”
Rex did not tell her which was the house until they came to the two tall poplars at the entrance to the drive. Kit caught the murmur of the waves as they broke on the shore below and lifted her chin eagerly.
“Oh, I like it,” she cried. “This is it, isn’t it? Isn’t it dreamy? I only hope they’ll let me stay.”