“Oh, I know the place, I remember admiring it as a boy. Besides, I’d like anything up here. Why, I could live out yonder in Becky’s corncrib very comfortably this summer if she’d only let me,” teased the invalid. “Better send a check out at once for the rent, Margie, and get into it as soon as possible.”
It was the third week in April when they drove down in relays from Maple Grove and took possession of the new home. There had been considerable repairing to be done—painting and papering, mending the water pipes and furnace, and cleaning out the chimneys.
The goods had been brought up from Nantic by Matt in the big hay wagon in four trips. Mrs. Craig had wanted to hire a truck from Norwich, but Rebecca said it was all nonsense with two big horses standing idle in the barn just aching for work, and Matt fussing around over frost still being in the ground so he couldn’t do any deep ploughing. So the goods came up and were packed into the big front room downstairs while the girls and Mrs. Craig went back and forth settling.
Matt’s younger brother came to do the papering and painting. He looked exactly like a young rooster, Kit declared, all neck and legs, and he was fearfully shy. She found immediate diversion in appearing before him suddenly in her most abrupt manner to ask his opinion anxiously on something, whereupon Shad would blush intensely to the roots of his taffy-colored hair, and splash paste blindly.
His name was Shadrach Farnum, but Shad suited him to perfection. As Rebecca said, he did sort of run to bone. But he could paint and paper well, and gradually the rooms began to look different. The big living room was covered with a soft gray that harmonized well with their dark green and chartreuse upholstered furniture. The bookcases were painted the same shade of gray. Window seats were built around the two bay windows, and the girls worked hard making new chartreuse cushions and crisp white curtains for the windows.
“It looks so warm and friendly, doesn’t it?” Doris exclaimed when the big round table was brought in and the copper lamp placed in the center. The copper lamp was really an institution in the Craig family. The girls had given it personal conduct from the Cove on Long Island to Nantic. Jean had found it in an old copper and brass shop in New York at a wonderful reduction, and had carted it home herself in triumph. The bowl was broad and low and squat, shaped a good deal like a summer squash. The parchment shade was perforated by hand with exquisite artistry into strange Muscovite designs, through which the light shone softly. When it was lighted the first evening in the new home, Doris said she felt that everything was complete.
The day after they really moved in, Rebecca drove down with Ella Lou and some good advice, a large brown crock of freshly baked beans and a loaf of brown bread.
“You need a good safe horse that you all can ride and also use for work,” she said. “Sam Willetts has a brown mare that seems just about the ticket. I telephoned over to him this morning and he’ll sell her for $75, which isn’t bad at all. If you like, Margie, I’ll call him up again as soon as I get back and Buzzy Hancock can bring her over. Buzzy’s working for Mr. Willetts now, and the mare used to belong to the Hancocks. She was a regular pet, Sally said.”
Mrs. Craig was sure it was a good plan and Rebecca was instructed to close the bargain. So it was thus Woodhow made the acquaintance of Buzzy Hancock, destined to be a close friend before summer was over, and always a family standby.
It was a little while after supper when Buzzy rode up leading the mare behind his own horse, and they all went out to look at her. Buzzy was about seventeen and tall. He had rosy cheeks, blue eyes, curly brown hair, and dimples so deep that Doris said it was a burning shame to waste them on a boy.