“Who wants a school out here? But if you’re so set on one, there’s a school over at the Gayhead crossroads. There’s a school bus that picks the kids up and takes them home again at night.”
“Jean has us all moved and settled already,” Mrs. Craig said. “I’m sure I’d like to be near where Rebecca lives.”
“Well, there it is,” Jean exclaimed happily. Ella Lou pricked up her ears and started to whine excitedly. Down one little hill, up another, over a culvert, and suddenly there appeared white chimneys rising above an apple orchard at the top of the hill.
“There it is,” she said, pointing to it with her hand. “Seven miles from nowhere, but right next door to heaven.”
8. The House on the Hill
The following morning Miss Craig said she thought she would drive down to Woodhow with Margaret Ann herself, and they’d look it over.
“If you children feel like coming down, why don’t you walk over. You can take the short cut through the woods. It’s not far. Like enough you’ll find some bloodroot out by now and saxifrage too. Don’t be like Jean, though. The other day she came up from the brook and said she’d found a calla lily, and it was just skunk cabbage.”
So the girls and Tommy took the short cut through the woods. They were just beginning to show signs of spring. The trees were bare, but under the dry leaves they found the new life springing. It was all new and interesting to them. Down at the Cove they had been in a beautiful part of Long Island but it was all restricted property. Here the woods and meadows spread for miles in every direction. Every pasture bar seemed to invite one to climb over it and explore. And where the woods ended in rocky pastures and wide spreading fields, they came out to a spot where they overlooked Woodhow and its grounds.
Becky and Mrs. Craig were there before them. The side door stood hospitably open and Ella Lou was lying on the front porch just as though she belonged there. It was a curiously interesting old place. First of all, a rock wall enclosed the grounds, with rock columns at the two entrance gates. These were wide, for the drive entered on one side, wound around the house, and came out on the other road, as the house stood at a corner.
The house itself looked like a glorified farmhouse, although it was hard to place it in the history of architecture.