“But what became of all the money he received for the land?”
“Dunno, honey. Dat’s what Marse Wallace done fight wid him about, years ago. He say ol’ Marse Eliot done sell his land an’ squander de money, what oughter go to Miss Molly an’ her chiluns; an’ ol’ Marse Eliot done tell him min’ his own business. Miss Molly were he on’y chile, an’ she done fit wi’ de ol’ man, too; so we uns didn’t hev no truck wi’ dey uns fer a long time. When Miss Molly died, Marse Wallace try to patch up t’ings, but ol’ Marse Eliot got de stroke what mumbled him, an’ it turned out he’s pore like Job’s turkey.”
“How does he live, then?” asked Judith.
“It don’ take much to feed his gruel to him, an’ ol’ Miss Halliday’s dat pars’monius she don’ eat decent cookin’ herself. She sell de aigs ’n’ chickens, an’ de fruit an’ sich, an’ she bargains at de groc’ry fer de cheapes’ stuff dey got. So dey somehow gits along—don’ ask me how, honey.”
“Well,” said Judith, rising with a sigh, “I see that I’m needed here, in more ways than one. Where may I locate my room, Aunt Hyacinth?”
This puzzled Mammy for a time. The old mansion had been built on a queer plan. Upstairs there were four bedrooms in the front of the house and four in the rear. Of these last the two at the back end overlooked the mountains and the valleys and were the most pleasantly situated of any in the house. Mr. Eliot had therefore chosen them for his own, and now he sat in a chair all day looking out of a window over the broad stretch of land he had always loved. It was a peaceful, quiet scene. Behind the house the streets were merely green lanes, with a few scattered habitations here and there. A little to the right, but in plain sight of this second-floor window, stretched the old-fashioned country graveyard—not yet sufficiently dignified to be called a “cemetery”—and Mr. Eliot’s eyes might clearly see a white mausoleum, which he had built years before, to contain his body when he had passed from life.
Everyone had thought this an eccentric thing for Jonathan Eliot to do; some of the neighbors shuddered at the idea of a live, healthy man preparing his own tomb. But there it was, scarcely a quarter of a mile distant from his dwelling; and, as he now sat paralyzed before the broad window, perhaps his glassy eyes rested more often upon that ghostly tomb than upon the charming landscape of hill and dale, that extended far into the distance toward Exeter.
Opening from this room was a balcony with outside stairs leading to the garden. Adjoining the two large rear rooms were a couple of small chambers opening into a hallway. The hall originally ran to the front of the house, but directly in the center of the passage had been placed a stout door, separating the upper part of the house into two distinct parts, each containing four chambers. Miss Halliday, in reserving the four rear rooms, had fitted up one of the hall chambers as a kitchen and retained the other for her own sleeping apartment. Of the two more spacious rear rooms, one was old Mr. Eliot’s bedroom and the other his living room. These four rooms satisfied all the requirements of the paralytic and his nurse, and so the balance of the house was turned over, somewhat grudgingly, to the orphaned Darings.
But in this arrangement Elaine Halliday made one curious stipulation. The two hall rooms were never to be used by the Darings, for any purpose. They might occupy the front bedrooms, but under the plea that the children might disturb their invalid grandfather, the hall rooms must remain vacant.
Phœbe had accordingly taken possession of one of the front chambers, and Phil and Don shared the other. Downstairs the house had a big parlor, or drawing-room—a ghostly, primly furnished apartment that all the Darings abhorred—a large dining room with a side porch, an ample hall with a spiral staircase, pantries and kitchen and two small chambers opening out of the dining room. Becky and Sue together occupied one of these little rooms, while the other, which had a door into the kitchen and was little more than a “cubbyhole,” was Aunt Hyacinth’s own room.