"I'm beginning to feel—like Jerry—that Kettle Mountain is inhabited by fairies and that I am in their stronghold!"
But there was little suggestive of the fairy in Jerry as she tumbled through the door at that moment, Pepperpot held high in her arms and Bigboy leaping at her side. They rudely disturbed the Maltese—Dormouse, Jerry called her—and then occupied in sprawling fashion the strip of rug before the hearth.
"Be still, Pepper! Shake hands with the gentleman, Bigboy. They're as offended as can be because I ran away without them," she explained to John Westley. "Do you feel better now?" she asked, a little proprietary note in her voice.
"I do, indeed, and I'm glad, too, very glad, that I got lost."
"And here comes Little-Dad up the trail! I'll tell him you're here. Anyway, he'll want me to put up Silverheels." She was off in a flash, the dogs leaping behind her.
After having met Jerry and Jerry's mother, John Westley was not at all surprised to find Dr. Travis a most unordinary man, also. He was small, his clothes, country-cut, hung loosely on his spare frame, his hair fringed over his collar in an untidy way, yet there was a kindliness, a gentleness in his face that was winning on the instant; one did not need to see his dusty, worn medicine case to know that his life was spent in caring for others.
Widely traveled as John Westley was, never in his whole life had he met with such an interesting experience as his night at Sunnyside. Most amazing was the hospitality of these people who seemed not to care at all who he might be—it was enough for them that chance had brought him, in a moment's need, to their door. Everything seemed to prove that Mrs. Travis, at least, was a woman educated beyond the ordinary, yet nothing in their simple, pleasant conversation could let anyone think that they had not both been born and brought up right there on Kettle. Everything about the house had the mark of a cultured taste, yet the cushioned chairs, the rugs, the soft-toned hangings were worn to shabbiness. And most mystifying of all was Miss Jerry herself, who had appeared at the supper table in a much faded but spotless gingham dress, black shoes and cotton stockings replacing the elkskins and woolen socks, very much a spirited little girl, with a fearlessness of expression that amused John Westley while at the same time he wondered if it could possibly be the training of the school at Miller's Notch.
He felt that Mrs. Travis must read in his face the curiosity that consumed him. He did not know that deep in her heart was a poignant regret that Jerry should have, in such friendly fashion, adopted this stranger—Jerry, who was usually a little shy! Of course she could not know that it was because he had admitted to Jerry that he, too, found something in Kettle that approached the magic—that he had stood on the Wishing-rock and had wished, very seriously, and if Mrs. Travis had known what that wish was her regret would, indeed, have been real alarm! After Jerry, with Pepper, had gone off to bed and Dr. Travis with Bigboy had slipped out to the little barn, John Westley said involuntarily, as though the words tumbled out in spite of anything he could do: "Of course, you know that I'm completely amazed to find a spot like this—off here on the mountain."
Mrs. Travis smiled, as though there were lots of things in her head that she was not going to say.
"Does Sunnyside seem attractive? We haven't any wealth—as the world reckons it, but the doctor and I love books and we've made our little corner in the world rich with them."