Aunt Jane's Nieces on the Ranch

by L. Frank Baum

The ceiling was high, and light and air were admitted by gratings placed at the top, letting onto the bastion of the roof, where they could not be observed by those below. The gratings were covered by projections that kept out the rain and dew. On the floor was a thick carpet, somewhat musty and dusty now, and at the far end was placed a couch with silken curtains. This was still piled high with bedding and pillows and was boxed in, the full width of the passage, with elaborately carved woods. Upholstered seats, rather narrow but long and quite comfortable, were built against the wall and supported by richly carved frames of ebony and panels of cherry. There were pictures upon the walls; oil paintings of quite good quality. A sort of wall-cabinet and some small brackets supported numerous hooks, ornaments, and several boxes of metal and sandalwood, which last Mildred eyed expectantly but had now no leisure to examine.

The girls were both awed by this discovery, for Mildred had never been permitted to mount the stair to this room when Señor Cristoval had allowed her to peep into the lower passage. The intense silence lent a weirdness to the place that was at first quite disconcerting. A gray rat scuttled along the carpet, causing them to jump and cry out, and then disappeared somewhere beneath the couch. Inez, trembling with nervous fear, hugged the baby with one arm and clutched Mildred’s arm with the other, and then they sat together on one of the cushioned seats and tried to collect their thoughts.

Mildred reflected that no person had entered this place for at least eight years, for it was eight years since the last Cristoval had passed to his fathers. Yet, aside from the dust, everything seemed in an excellent state of preservation. The secret room had been fitted up by its builder more than fifty years before and much of the furnishings must have been placed there then.

“My first task,” she said to Inez, “must be to make a thorough examination of this place. Since there is no one to help us, we must help ourselves, and any weakness at this time would be fatal.”

With this she rose and carefully began to inspect the walls. The heavy carpet was merely laid flat on the adobe floor and she raised it here and there and tested the blocks to see if any was movable. There was no means of reaching the ceiling but an opening there was out of the question.

Near the center of the room, on the inner wall and about two feet from the floor, was a square of wood firmly embedded in the adobe. This, she thought, might possibly be a means of egress or ingress, so she tested it eagerly, pressing not only upon the wood but on all the blocks of adobe near it, in the endeavor to discover a hidden spring or some other clever mechanical contrivance which would prove the “open sesame.” But the panel and the wall defied all her efforts and she finally concluded it was solid planking placed there to support the wall or to allow cupboards or shelves to be nailed against it.

Another similar place, where a huge panel of plank was set in the wall, she found at the very end of the passage, beyond the couch, and was only able to reach it by mounting the bed and climbing over the bedding. This panel was also immovable and she decided it could not be an opening because the wall beyond it was doubtless solid. This space beyond the bed, where the room ended, contained a huge chest of quaintly carved oak. As she saw the chest her heart gave a great bound and forgetting for the moment her desire to escape she reached down and raised the lid.

Then her face fell. Despite the dim light in this corner, which she had grown somewhat accustomed to in investigating the panel, she could see that the chest contained merely papers, with which it was half filled. This might be the accumulated correspondence of the Cristovals, of no use to any but themselves, and losing all interest in the chest she closed the lid and again crossed over the high bed to Inez.

The result of this investigation, which had consumed a full hour, so thorough had she been, convinced Mildred that there was no immediate way for them to leave their prison. So she began to plan how they might keep themselves and baby Jane comfortable until they were rescued.

The bottle of milk, which Inez still held in her hand, was a prepared food of a highly nourishing quality. The contents of the bottle had scarcely been touched by baby when, rousing from her sleep, she had been taken up and comforted by Inez until slumber again overtook her. Usually Jane consumed two bottles of such food each day, and another during each night.