“Come in to breakfast. Shag has had his and we have such lovely berries. Come along, girlie,” directed the aunt, and she wound an arm over the shoulder that pressed up to her affectionately.
Shag, the big collie, took up his post at the door. The bungalow was unique in type, if bungalows are ever alike, and the pine trees that sheltered and brushed its roof with a sibilant swish, hummed now a pretty tuneless whisper. The place was hidden against a rocky ledge and not until one stood squarely in front of the unpainted log cabin was the building really visible, in its nest of trees and brush.
Some few years before a man with his little daughter and his sister came up to the hills. He stayed at the Tippiturn House while he built this bungalow. Then he took his daughter Peggie and his sister Caroline to the house in the hills, where he lived apart from all the natives and cottagers. This was Horace Ramsdell, Peggie’s father, but few people had cause to remember the name, for the owner lived aloof from others and made few friends even in the village.
With all this he was a very pleasant man, fond of animals, kind to youngsters and generous in payment for any service. He died suddenly the year before the Scouts found their way into Tamarack Hills, where they crossed the path of Peg, the now fifteen-year-old daughter.
She followed her father’s footsteps in living alone, and in the matter of shunning companions, but she could not avoid making friends, as Pete the boatman had already assured the Girl Scouts.
Her queer ways, defiance of dress codes, and above all her fondness for horseback riding, naturally stirred up criticism, but Peg was as oblivious of this as she was of the taunts so often flung at her by school girls, whose companionship she seemed to ignore.
“Fly-away Peg,” they called her, and the way she “flew to school” on her blue roan might easily have merited the caption. But to Morton School from Tamarack Hills was a long distance, mostly covered by woodlands, and when others came in autos or by wagon, why shouldn’t Peg come on horseback?
She should and she did, with a smile for the Fly-away Peg, and some fruit, winter and summer, for the old janitor who took care of her horse during the school session.
There was something incongruous in her attitude. She was so lively and rollicking with anyone who would not follow up the familiarity, but just as soon as one would threaten to call at her bungalow, or would ask her to call at theirs, Peg seemed to take fright and would scurry off like some woodland thing jealous of its hiding place.
No tradesman ever got past the door of her cabin; not even good old Doctor Rowan was brought inside when once he called to pay a professional visit on Aunt Carrie.