“Sh-h,” warned Jean, “he might hear you and it would hurt his feelings.” She glanced back over her shoulder to where Mr. Delaplaine worked, taking off the outer layer of charred clapboards from the front of the house.
“Still it is nice to own a dean, almost as good as a squire,” repeated Kit placidly.
“I didn’t pay much attention to what they were saying about him,” said Jean dreamily. “Is he still alive?”
“He is, but I guess he might as well be dead as far as the rest of the family is concerned. Becky said he’d never married, and he lived with his sister out in the middle west somewhere. Not the real west—I mean the interesting west like Saskatchewan and Saskatoon and—you know what I mean, Jean?”
Jean was particularly interested in Saskatoon for it was there that Ralph McRae lived. Ralph, who was twenty-five, had been the owner of Woodhow before the Craigs bought it and the first summer they were in Elmhurst, he had come to visit them and was immediately attracted to Jean. He had returned last spring with Buzzy Hancock, his cousin and a great friend of Kit’s, who had spent the year with him. Then he had gone West again, taking Buzzy’s sister, Sally, and Mrs. Hancock with him to make their home in Saskatoon. Jean missed him very much, more than she would admit to Kit or the others, and she looked forward to his frequent letters.
“There comes the mail,” called Jean, starting up and running down the drive as the truck came in sight. The carrier waved a newspaper and letter at them.
“Nothing for you girls today, only a letter for your father and a weekly newspaper for Matt. I’ll leave it up at the old place as I go by.” He added as a happy afterthought to relieve any possible anxiety on their part, “It’s from Delphi, Wisconsin.”
Kit stood transfixed with wonder, as he passed on up the hill. “Jean,” she said slowly, “there’s something awfully queer about me. That letter was from Uncle Barton Cato Peabody.”
“Well, what if it is?” asked Jean, shaking the needles from her blouse.
“But, don’t you get the significance? I was just telling you about him and now there’s a letter from him for Dad.”