“We shall have a fairies’ ball and you shall be queen.”
“Oh, oh! And the grape-vine swing will do for a throne. But perhaps you would rather be queen,” added Jane politely.
“No, I’ll be master of ceremonies.”
They had the game before many more days, and it opened up a new world to Jane who thereafter queened it royally in fairy-land, with the dolls for ladies of honor and the birds and butterflies her royal messengers. Her faith in the real fairies was firm and deep-rooted, the most ardent desire of her life being to see one. She never confided this hope to Christopher and the new game was kept for her lonely hours when Christopher was away with Jo Perkins or Bill Carpenter, with which latter boy his intimacy was growing.
[CHAPTER III—A SPRAINED ANKLE]
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones was a great walker and took many long, long tramps around the countryside. The villagers had got quite used to the spectacle of the white-haired lady clad in a short skirt of stout tweed and heavy laced boots. White hair is not always the accompaniment of trembling fingers, black silk gowns and knitting.
But her habit of taking lonely walks brought about an accident that might have been serious if it had not been for the twins’ love of exploring.
Branching off the main road that led from Sunnycrest to the village was a winding lane known as Birch Lane, which had a little story attached to it. The road had been built long ago by a very rich man as the avenue leading to his big country house. It was built below the level of the ground with grassy terraces sloping up on each side, along the base of which beautiful birch trees had been planted. But the rich man lost all his money and became too poor to build his house. The lane was left deserted and uncared-for, the graceful trees grew bent and gnarled and some of them died; the grass terraces slipped and caved in until they became only clay banks.
Jane and Christopher had often looked up the gloomy little roadway, now no more than a mere cow-path, and asked many questions concerning it. They both had a great longing to “explore” its depths, each for a different reason. Jane was sure that the fairies danced there and felt a breathless hope of one day catching them at it. Christopher, on the other hand, thought it not unlikely that a stray wolf or even a bear might be prowling around the tiny wilderness.
As the lane was only a mile distant from Sunnycrest, grandmother said they might go on a voyage of discovery—“only you go on voyages in a boat,” Christopher had corrected her—whenever Joshua could spare Jo Perkins to go with them. Jane rebelled at this, for she was sure the fairies would never appear before a great big boy of fourteen. But grandmother was firm on this point; so the trio started off one sunny afternoon, Jo Perkins carrying a basket containing quite a day’s provisions “in case they might get hungry before supper-time,” Huldah explained.