Transcriber’s Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.

MAIDA’S LITTLE HOUSE

Maida’s Little House

BY

INEZ HAYNES IRWIN

Author of
MAIDA’S LITTLE SHOP, MAIDA’S LITTLE SCHOOL,
ETC.

GROSSET & DUNLAP
Publishers : : New York

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
B. W. HUEBSCH, Inc.

First printing, November, 1921
Second printing, October, 1922
Third printing, August, 1928
Fourth printing, July, 1931

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

TO
BARBARA IVERSON HAYNES

CONTENTS

MAIDA’S LITTLE HOUSE

CHAPTER I THE HOME COMING

“I wonder when Maida’s coming back?” said Rosie Brine as she approached the trio of children who sat on the Lathrop lawn.

The three were Laura Lathrop; her brother, Harold Lathrop; their friend, Arthur Duncan. Rosie did not join them on the grass. She seated herself in the hammock behind them and began to swing, first slowly, then so violently that her black curls swept back and forth with her swift progress and her speech came in jerks. “I wouldn’t mind—how long I had to wait—if I only knew—when she was coming.”

Nobody answered. Rosie had only asked a question that they all asked at intervals, hoping against hope that somebody would make a comforting guess.

“I don’t believe she’s ever coming back,” Rosie answered herself, recklessly swinging almost over their heads.

Arthur Duncan, a big broad-shouldered boy with tousled thick brown hair beating down over his forehead and almost veiling eyes as steady as they were black, answered this. “Oh Maida’s coming home some time. She promised and she always keeps her promises.”

“When we were going to school,” put in Laura Lathrop, “it was bad enough. But we didn’t have time to miss her so much then. But now that school’s over and there’s nothing to do—Oh, how I wish she were here!”

“Well, what good would it do?” Harold Lathrop asked. Harold and Laura looked much alike although Laura was slim and brown-haired and Harold flaxen and a little stout. But both had blue eyes and small, regular features.

“We wouldn’t see anything of her,” Harold continued, “she’d he going away somewhere for the summer and we wouldn’t have a chance to get to know her until fall.”

“Maida’d never do that,” Rosie Brine declared emphatically. “She’d manage some way to be with us for a while.” She brought the hammock to a stop for a moment with the swift kick of a determined foot against a tuft of grass. “There’s one thing I am sure of and that is that Maida would never forget us or want to be away from us. She says that in every letter I’ve got from her.”

“Well, what are we going to do to-day?” Harold demanded. “I should think from the way we sit here that we had not been counting up the days to vacation for a month. Why Laura’s even had the hours all numbered out on her calendar, so’s she could draw a line through them every night.”

“I wanted to have the minutes marked out too,” Laura admitted, “but it took too much time.”

“What are we going to do?” Harold persisted. “Here it is the first day of vacation, and we sit here saying nothing. You think of something, Arthur, you always can.”

Arthur Duncan rolled over face downwards on the grass. “I can’t think of anything to do this morning,” he admitted. “It’s so hot ... and I feel so lazy ... seems to me I’d just like to lie here all day.”

It was hot that late June day in Charlestown. Not a breeze stirred the shrubs of the Lathrop lawn. The June roses drooped; the leaves seemed wilting; even the blue sky looked thick and sultry. Huge white clouds moved across it so lazily that it was as though they too felt the general languor. The children looked as children generally look at the close of school, pale and a little tired. Their movements were listless.

Just outside the gate of the Lathrop place was Primrose Court; a little court, lined with maples and horse-chestnuts with shady little wooden houses set behind tiny gardens, in their turn set within white wooden fences. At one corner of Primrose Court and Warrington Street, set directly opposite a school house, was a little shop. And over the shop printed in gold letters against a background of sky blue, hung a sign which read:

MAIDA’S LITTLE SHOP

In Primrose Court, the smaller children were playing as briskly as though there were no such thing as weather. Brown-eyed, brown-haired, motherly Molly Doyle, quick, efficient but quiet, was apparently acting as the wife and mother of an imaginary house. Smaller and younger, Timmie Doyle, her brother, a little pop-eyed, brownie-like boy, slow-moving and awkward, was husband and father. There were four children in this make-believe household. Quite frequently, little Betsy Hale, slim, black-eyed and rosy-cheeked and little Delia Dore, chubby and blonde with thick red curls, attempted to run away; were caught and punished with great thoroughness. Apparently Dorothy and Mabel Clark, twin sisters, one the exact duplicate of the other, with big, round blue eyes and long round golden curls, were the grown-up daughters of this make-believe family. They were intent on household tasks, thrusting into an imaginary stove absolutely real mud pies and sweeping an imaginary room with an absolutely real dust-pan and brush.

Aside from this active scene, everything was quiet. Farther down the Court, doves had settled; were pink-toeing about feeding busily; preening and cooing.

“Sometimes,” Laura said thoughtfully, “I feel as though I had dreamed Maida. If the Little Shop were not here with her name over the door and all of you to talk about her with me, I should believe I had just waked up.” She stopped a moment. “If it had been a dream how mad I should be to think I had waked up.”

“Do you remember how exciting it was when Maida first came to live over the Little Shop?” Rosie exclaimed.

“I should say I did!” It was Laura who answered her. “Wasn’t it wonderful when all that pretty furniture came for their rooms?”

“Yes, and the canaries and the great geraniums for the windows,” Rosie added eagerly.

“The most wonderful thing though,” Arthur went on, “was when the sign went up. It was such a pretty sign—MAIDA’S LITTLE SHOP in gold painted on blue. And—”

“Gee, how wild we all were to see Maida!” Harold said.

“I don’t know what I expected,” Rosie’s voice was dreamy, “but I certainly was surprised when Maida appeared—”

“Lame,” Arthur concluded for her, “like Dicky. But they’re both all right now. Dicky certainly is and Maida was when she left for Europe.”

“I often think,” Harold began again after a little pause, “of when we first met her and she used to talk of the things her father gave her, we thought she was telling lies.”

“I never thought she was telling lies,” Rosie expostulated. “I loved her too much for that. I knew Maida wouldn’t tell lies. I thought she’d just dreamed those things. I remember them all—her mother’s mirror and brush and comb of gold with her initials in diamonds.... And the long string of pearls that she used to wear that came to her knees.... And a dress of cloth of gold trimmed with roses and a diamond, like a drop of dew, in the heart of every rose.”

“Yes, and the peacocks at her father’s place, some of them white,” Arthur interrupted.

“And don’t you remember,” Harold went on, “we all thought she was crazy when she said that once he gave her for a birthday present her weight in twenty-dollar gold-pieces.”

“And a wonderful birthday party,” Laura added eagerly, “with a Maypole and a doll-baby house big enough to go into and live—”

“I don’t wonder we didn’t believe it all,” Rosie declared with conviction, “It sounds like a fairy tale. And then it turned out that she was the daughter of a great millionaire and every word of it was true. Do you remember how we asked Mr. Westabrook at Maida’s Christmas tree if it was all true and he said that it was?”

“I’d like to see those white peacocks,” Dicky said dreamily.

“I’d like to see that doll-baby house,” Laura added wistfully.

“I’d like to see the gold comb and brush and mirror with the diamonds,” Rosie declared, “and that dress with the roses and the diamond dew-drops. I like to look at precious stones. I like things that sparkle.”

At this thought, she herself sparkled until her eyes were like great black diamonds in her vivid brilliant face.

“I’d like to see that pile of twenty-dollar gold-pieces,” Harold said.

“Oh I wish she’d come back,” Rosie sighed. The sparkle all went out of her face and she stopped swinging.

A door leading into Primrose Court opened with a suddenness that made them all jump. A boy with big eyes, very brown and lustrous, lighting his peaked face and straight hair very brown and lustrous, framing it, came bounding out. He ran in the direction of the group on the lawn, and as he ran he waved something white in his hand. The doves flew away before him in a glittering V. “Hurrah!” he yelled.

“Gee, how Dicky can run!” Arthur Duncan exclaimed. “Who’d ever believed that one year ago, he was wearing an iron on his leg? He—”

“Oh what is it, Dicky?” Rosie Brine called impatiently.

Dicky had by this time reached the Lathrop gate.

“A post card from Maida,” he shouted.

“Does she say when she’s coming home?” Laura asked quickly.

“No,” Dicky answered. He threw himself down among them; handed the post card to Rosie who had leaped from the hammock. It passed from hand to hand. Harold, the last to receive it, read it aloud. “Love to everybody and how I wish I could see you all!” was with the date, all it said.

“Nothing about coming home,” exclaimed Rosie, “Oh dear, how disappointed I am.”

“Where’s it from?” Arthur asked, as though suddenly remembering something. “The last post card was from Paris.”

“London,” Dicky answered.

“London,” Arthur echoed, “she told me that when she came home, she’d sail from England.”

“Did she?” Rosie asked listlessly. “She never told me that, but you see, she says nothing of sailing. She’s probably going to spend the summer there. I remember that she told me of a beautiful place they lived in one summer in England. She said that there was a forest not far from the house where Robin Hood and his men used to meet. Probably she will go there.” Rosie stopped for a minute and then the listlessness in her voice changed to a kind of despair. “I don’t believe she’ll ever come back.”

“I know she will,” Dicky announced with decision. “The last thing Maida said was, ‘I’ll come back,’ and she always keeps her promises.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she came back this summer some time,” Arthur said. “Anyway I know she said they’d sail from England.”

“Yes but by that time we’ll all be away.” Laura’s voice held a disappointed note. “We’re going to Marblehead in a week or two for the whole summer and you’re going to Weymouth, Rosie, aren’t you?”

Rosie nodded. “Only for two weeks though.”

“Where are you going?” Laura asked Arthur.

“I don’t know. When my father gets his two weeks’ vacation, maybe we’ll take a tramp somewhere, that is if it doesn’t come after school has begun.”

“And where are you going, Dicky?” Laura went on.

“Nowhere. We’re going to stay here in Charlestown. Primrose Court will be my vacation. Mother says she will try to take us to City Point or Revere or Nantasket every Sunday. Now what are we going to do to-day?”

“We might go upstairs in the cupola and play games,” Harold suggested.

“No I don’t want to stay in the house the first day of vacation,” Rosie announced discontentedly.

“Let’s play stunts,” suggested Dicky who, since his lame leg had recovered, could never seem to get enough of athletic exercise.

“Too hot,” decided Laura.

“Hide-and-go-seek,” suggested Arthur.

“Too hot,” decided Harold.

“Follow-My-Leader,” suggested Dicky.

“Too hot,” decided Rosie.

“Hoist-the-Sail,” suggested Arthur.

“Too hot,” decided Laura.

“Prisoners’ Base,” suggested Harold.

“Too hot,” decided Rosie.

“Tag,” suggested Arthur.

“Too hot,” decided Harold.

Laura burst out laughing. “Every game anybody proposes is too hot for somebody else. I say let’s all lie face downwards and think and think and think until somebody gets an idea of something new that we can do.”

Everybody adopted her suggestion. The four on the grass turned over, lay like stone images carved there. Rosie turned over in the hammock.

“I wish Maida’d come home!” came from her in muffled accents before she, too, subsided.

* * * * * * *

A whole minute passed. Nobody moved. Even Rosie kept rigid.

Into the silence floated the note of a far-away automobile horn. It was not so much a call or warning as a gay carolling, a long level ribbon of sound which unwound itself continuously and, drifting on the soft spring air, came nearer and nearer. It stopped for a moment ... started again ... continued more and more gayly ... ran up and down a trilled scale once more....

The stone images stirred uneasily.

The horn grew louder.... In a moment it would pass Primrose Court.... The horn ended in a high swift call.... The car stopped....

The stone images lifted their heads.

A girl, lithe but strong-looking with wide-apart big gray eyes gleaming in a little face, just touched in the cheek with pink, with masses of feathery golden hair hanging over her blue coat, was stepping out of the car.

The images flashed upright; leaped to their feet.

“It’s Maida!” Rosie Brine called as she sped like an arrow shot from a bow towards the automobile. “Oh, Maida! Maida! Maida! Maida!”

“It’s Maida!” the others took it up and raced into the Court.

CHAPTER II THE PLAN

“When did you land?” “Why didn’t you let us know?” “How long are you going to stay?” “Did your father come too?” “Where’s Billy Potter?” “How’s Dr. Pierce?” And “Oh how you’ve grown!”

Maida tried to answer them all; to hug each of the girls who were hugging her all together; to hold out a hand to each of the three boys who seemed all to shake both her hands at once; to manage to kiss Betsy Hale, who hearing the name Maida shouted, vaguely recalled that there had once been a Maida whom she loved; and who thereupon, hung tight to one of her legs; to manage to kiss Delia Dore who had no remembrance of Maida whatever but in imitation of Betsy, hung tight to the other leg; and in addition to call to Molly and Timmie and Dorothy and Mabel who remembered her perfectly and who danced like little wild Indians on the outskirts of the crowd, yelling, “Maida’s come back! Maida’s come back!” at the top of their lungs.

All this took much less time to happen than it has taken to describe, and it was suddenly interrupted by the rapid opening of the door to the Dore yard. A little old Irish woman with silvery hair and with a face as wrinkled as a nut, came rushing out, her arms extended calling, “My lamb’s come back! My lamb’s come back!”

Maida ran to her and hugged her ecstatically. “Oh, dear Granny Flynn!” she said, “Dear, dear Granny Flynn!”

Then there appeared back of Granny Flynn, Mrs. Dore—Granny Flynn’s daughter; Delia and Dicky Dore’s mother—who had to be met in the same affectionate way. Mrs. Dore was a tall, brown, fresh-complexioned woman. It was from her that Dicky inherited his brown coloring and Delia her sparkling expression.

“I’d never know you for the same child,” Mrs. Dore said.

Of course the grown people claimed Maida’s attention first. They showered her with questions and she answered them every one with all her old-time courtesy and consideration. Was she well? Well! But look at her! When did she land? She had landed the day before in New York; had come on the midnight to Boston. Where was she living? At their home on Beacon Street. Would she stay to lunch? Yes! Yes! Yes! Her father had said that if she were invited, she could spend the whole rest of the day in Primrose Court; he would send the car for her late in the afternoon. Where was she going after that? Her father would tell them all this afternoon. He had some plans, but they weren’t worked out yet. Would she be in Boston for a few days? Probably. Then, during that time, wouldn’t she like to come back to her own rooms over MAIDA’S LITTLE SHOP? Would she? Oh goody, she could telephone her father to bring her some clothes.... It went on and on until the older children stood first on one foot and then on the other with impatience; and the younger ones went back to their house-keeping game and their frequent punishments.

But finally the curiosity of this group of grown-ups was satisfied and the children claimed their prey. A clamorous group—every one of them telling her some bit of news and all at once—they made the tour of the Court. They called on Mrs. Lathrop, who mercifully forebore to ask more than five minutes of questions; and on the Misses Allison, a pair of middle-aged maiden ladies. Here the confusion doubled itself because of the noisy screams of Tony the parrot.

Tony kept calling at the top of his croaking voice, “What’s this all about?” Each of the children tried to tell him, but he was apparently dissatisfied with their explanations; for he only called the louder and with greater emphasis, “I say—what is this all about?” Finally, in despair he exclaimed, “Good-night, sweet dreams,” and subsided.

At length, the six of them—Maida, Rosie, Laura, Arthur, Dicky and Harold—retired to the Lathrop lawn and plumped down on the grass. They talked and talked and talked....

“How you have grown, Maida!” Rosie said first. “How tall you are and strong-looking!” She would have added, “And how pretty!” if the boys had not been there, but shyness kept her from making so personal a comment in their presence.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking about you,” Maida laughed, “but then you have all grown, Arthur particularly.” In her candid, friendly way, she surveyed them, one after another. “You are taller too, Laura, and I believe even your hair has grown.”

“It certainly has,” Laura admitted. Laura’s hair was extraordinarily long and thick. It hung in two light-brown braids, very glossy, not a hair out of place, to below Laura’s waist. At the tip of each braid was a big pale blue bow.

“As for you, Rosie, you are still taller than I, I’m afraid.”

“Let’s measure,” Rosie answered springing to her feet.

The two girls stood shoulder to shoulder. Rosie, it proved, was a little the taller. Maida continued to look at her after they had resumed their places on the grass. “What a beauty she is,” she thought; and she too was withheld by shyness and a sense of delicacy from making this comment before the others.

Rosie was certainly handsome. Tall, active, proud-looking; great black eyes lighted by stars; a mass of black hair breaking into high waves and half curls; cheeks as smooth as satin and stained a deep crimson—ivory-white, jet-black, coral-crimson—that was Rosie. Maida had always called her Rose-Red.

“But the greatest change has come in Dicky and me,” Maida ended. “We have both lost our lameness. You don’t limp, Dicky, and I don’t. Let’s race to the gate and back.”

Dicky was on his feet in a minute. Arthur called, “One to make ready, two for a show—” At the word, “Go” they were off. Dicky was more active but Maida was taller. The race finished a tie.

The blood which Maida’s running brought to her cheeks painted roses there; not the deep crimson roses which bloomed perpetually in Rosie’s face but transient blossoms, delicately pink. And under that flush, her face, a healthy ivory, looked well. Her big gray eyes were filled with happiness and the torrent of her pale-gold feathery hair seemed to gush from her head like living light.

They sat and talked until luncheon and immediately after luncheon gathered on the lawn and talked again. Maida still had questions to ask and comments to make.

“You have all grown,” she said once, “but somehow I think the little children have grown the most and Dorothy and Mabel more than anybody! Their eyes still look like great blue marbles and their hair as though it had been curled over a candlestick. Isn’t it marvelous how they keep exactly the same height. Twins are magical creatures, aren’t they? As for Betsy and Delia—they’re great big girls. I suppose Betsy still runs away every chance she gets. On the whole I think Molly and Timmie have changed the least. Does Timmie still fall into all the ‘pud-muddles?’ Molly still looks like a darling brown robin and Timmie like a brown bogle. Don’t you remember I used to call them Robin and Bogle.”

The children answered all her questions. Yes, Betsy still ran away. No, Bogle had quieted down. He didn’t fall into “pud-muddles” any more. Of course they had their questions to ask Maida about her year in Europe. And she told them of her experiences in Italy, Switzerland, France, and England. But though she answered them instantly, and with the fullness of detail which had always been her characteristic, it seemed at moments as though her mind were not all on what she was saying. Once or twice, she even interrupted herself to start something which had nothing to do with her subject. But apparently, both times, she thought better of it and checked a tongue which obviously was yearning to speed on in the interest of that unknown subject.

“There’s something you want to tell us Maida,” Dicky guessed shrewdly once. “But you won’t let yourself.”

Maida blushed furiously but her eyes danced. She did not answer. Rosie, thereupon, continued to watch her closely. “Maida Westabrook, you’re almost bursting over something,” she said once; then as though with an inspiration, “You’ve got a plan of some kind and I know it.”

Again Maida blushed and this time she laughed outright. “Wait and see!” was all she said, however.

After they had talked themselves out, they showed Maida the accumulated treasures of the last year. The wood-carving, which was Arthur’s accomplishment and the paper-work which was Dicky’s, had improved enormously. The beautiful box of tools that Mr. Westabrook had presented to the one and the big box of paints that he had given the other, were of course important factors in the improvement. Laura still danced beautifully and she danced her latest dance for Maida—a Spanish fandango. Harold was raising rabbits and he showed his entire family to Maida. At the urge of all this work, Rosie, who hated the sight of a needle, had taken in despair, to knitting. She could endure knitting she told Maida because the work grew so fast. She herself said though that the less said about the results of her labor, the better. And Maida frankly agreed with her when she examined some of it.

After this the group returned to the yard for more talk.

Somehow they didn’t feel like playing games. Late in the afternoon, they sprinkled the flower beds and hosed the lawn for Mrs. Lathrop. Then as this made further sitting on the grass impossible, they retired to the tiny Dore yard with its amusing little flower bed and its one patch of grass. There was just about room for their group there. They sat down. Again they asked Maida about her travels. But now Maida was distinctly absent-minded. Suddenly in the midst of a description of Pompeii, there sounded a long, faint far-away call of an automobile horn. It broke, like a fire-rocket, into a flurry of star notes; then dropped a long liquid jet of sound which, again like a fire-rocket, dropped another shower of notes. The effect on Maida was electric. She came upright, quivering.

“That’s father,” she said. “Now I can tell you what I’ve been biting my lips all the morning to keep back. I didn’t want to tell you until he was here to talk to your fathers and mothers. But, oh, we’ve got such a beautiful plan for the summer— Oh it’s so wonderful that it seems like a fairy tale.”

The long jet of sound lengthened ... came nearer....

“Father wants you all to come to spend the summer with us at Satuit. He’s going to do the most beautiful thing you ever heard of in your life. Just as he gave me Maida’s Little Shop, he is going to give me Maida’s Little House. He is going to live in the Big House where he can have all the grown-up company he wants and we are going to live in the Little House. The Little House is so far away from the Big House that nobody would ever guess we were there. Oh, but it’s all so beautiful and there are so many things to tell about it that I don’t know where to begin. For one thing he’s going to let us all help in— We girls are to do our part in the—And the boys are to take care of the— Oh it is such a duck of a house! Built very near a great big pond and not so very far off—the ocean. And there’s a wood and House Rock and the Bosky Dingle ... and.... Oh, I don’t know how to tell you about it....”

She stopped for breath.

The horn came nearer and nearer.

The five faces stared at her. For one astounded instant nobody could speak.

“Oh Maida!” at last Rosie breathed. The two girls threw themselves upon her; Arthur rose and then suddenly sat down again but Dicky kept quite still his eyes full of stars. “I knew you’d have some plan, Maida,” he said. Harold, unexpectedly, turned a somersault.

“I know I’m dreaming,” Laura almost whispered.

The horn stopped. A great gray car turned into Primrose Court. A man, middle-aged, tall, massive and with a pronounced stoop to his shoulders, stepped out. He turned a head, big and shaggy as a buffalo, in the direction of Maida’s Little Shop. The piercing eyes, fierce and keen as an eagle’s, seemed to penetrate its very walls. This was Jerome Westabrook whom the world called, “Buffalo” Westabrook.

Maida dashed out of the yard, the children trailing her.

“Oh father, father, I’ve told them, I’ve told them! I couldn’t keep it any longer after I heard the horn.”

CHAPTER III THE JOURNEY

As the train drew into the Satuit Station, it seemed to spill children from every door. Counting them carefully, Granny Flynn and Mrs. Dore found to their great relief that the twelve, with whom they started, were still all with them. But—big and little—they were all so full of the excitement of the trip that it looked as though, at any moment, they might vanish in the strange country which surrounded them. Arthur, leading the two boys, started an investigation of the station. The three big girls followed. Only the little children, tired by the trip and awed to quiet by the unfamiliar surroundings, stayed close to the women’s skirts. Timmie’s big full eyes surveyed in wonder the strange new world. Delia, who had fallen comfortably asleep in her mother’s arms, suddenly waked up, rubbing her eyes, and looked about her. “Oh take me back to Shalstown!” she wailed in a sudden attack of homesickness and fortunately fell asleep again.

“Oh here’s the car!” Maida called.

A big comfortable limousine came round the bend of the road. The driver alighted, and came forward. “Here I am at last, Miss Maida,” he said, his hand to his cap.

“Oh good afternoon, Botkins,” Maida greeted him. She introduced him to Granny Flynn and Mrs. Dore; then to the children.

“I’m sorry I was late, ma’am,” Botkins said to Granny Flynn, “but I nearly ran over a dog in the road. I stopped to see if it was all right.”

“And was it?” Rosie Brine, who had a passion for animals, asked eagerly.

“Right as a trivet,” Botkins answered.

“What is a trivet, Maida?” Rosie asked in a mystified aside.

“I’ll show in a few minutes, goose,” Maida rejoined. “It’s an English word.”

Botkins, who was English also, began stowing the party away in the automobile: Granny Flynn and Mrs. Dore on the back seats; Betsy and Delia between them; and Mollie and Timmie at their feet. Maida and Laura each holding a very active Clark twin, occupied the little seats. Rosie, to her great delight, was permitted to sit with the driver. The three boys hung onto the running board.

“We look like an orphan-asylum,” Arthur commented as, with a long call of warning from the horn, they started off.

The road stretched straight before them, wide and yellow, furred with trees on both sides; then vanished under an arch of green as it turned to the left.

“Aren’t there any houses in Satuit, Maida?” Laura asked.

“Plenty,” Maida answered. “We’ll come to some in a minute—then to more. In a little while, we’ll go right through the town.”

For a few moments nobody spoke; just watched for the first house. Presently a little white farmhouse, gambrel-roofed and old, popped into view at one side.

“Oh did you see that lovely old well with the long pole?” Rosie exclaimed from the front seat.

“That’s a well-sweep,” Maida explained. “It has a bucket at one end.”

“Oh see the ponies! One, two, three, four, five—” but the car shot Laura past before she had all the ponies counted.

“Gee, look at all those hens!” came from Arthur. “Must be a hundred!”

And then followed a chorus of “Oh sees!” The beautiful big barn with its wide doors! The lovely little pond covered with lily pads: The trim little vine-covered summer house perched on the hill! Bee hives! The old grave yard!

And, “See the moo-cow!” piped up Betsy Hale and “Tee the moo-tow!” Delia, as usual mimicked her.

Timmie did not speak; but his big eyes, made bigger by wonder, mirrored everything.

“There’s the town!” Maida said finally and again for a few moments there was silence.

The town manifested itself at first only by scattered farmhouses. But these began to draw closer and closer together until, finally, they seemed almost to huddle about the beautiful little white church standing amidst rows of old lichen-covered slate gravestones, and pointing with a slender, delicately-cut-and-carved, white spire at the blue sky. Stores were here too, a moving picture house; a small inn; a post office; a garage.

Then the road turned suddenly and for an instant it was almost as though their speed would take them across the broad stretch of a velvety green lawn into the blue harbor which expanded beyond. This harbor bore here and there white-sailed boats. Not far away, a boy was fishing from the side of a dory. There was a chorus of delighted ohs and ahs from the car. But their speed did not abate for a moment.

On they went and on; and soon the village was behind, far behind; houses were drawing apart from each other. The forest was closing about the farms, separating them.... Now the car was on the smooth hard road again, thick tree growths on both sides.

With a contented sigh, Betsy closed her eyes and fell fast asleep. Delia had long ago surrendered to the sand-man. Molly was trying her best to keep awake; but it was obvious that she could not hold out long. Timmie’s eyes were beginning to film with fatigue, but he fought it manfully. Even the Clark twins had become silent. But the other children were as wide-awake as when they started.

More yellow road and more yellow road—more green trees and more green trees. In the front seat, Rosie bounced. “Oh Maida,” she called, “it seems to me I can’t wait. Will we ever get there?”

Maida’s eyes danced. “Oh in an hour or so,” she said airily.

“An hour,” Laura groaned. “We have gone a thousand miles already.”

Even as she spoke, the motor turned smoothly, the horn emitting a long silvery gurgle. They entered, between two massive stone posts, a long avenue which curved away in the distance like a wide gray tape thrown amidst the trees.

“Maida Westabrook you fibber!” Rosie exclaimed, “we’re here now!”

Maida only twinkled.

On they went. On both sides grew great trees. But, unlike the forests that stretched away from the public roads which they had just traversed, these woods had been freed of their underbrush. The grass beneath them was like velvet and lying on it, as though liquid gold had oozed or poured through the branches, shone tiny splashes and great pools of sunlight. It looked as though the whole green earth were caught in a golden net.

On and on! To the impatient children it seemed that they went miles.

“Oh!” Arthur Duncan exclaimed suddenly. And then, quite like a girl, again and again, “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

The car had turned so that it looked straight down into a cleared glade. At the end of the vista, a group of deer, dappled in white all over their lovely, dead-leaf brown bodies, lifted their heads, and with their great soft eyes surveyed the car. But they stared for such a tiny fraction of a second that it scarcely seemed that the thing had happened at all for—flash! There was a glimpse of white as they turned tail. They vanished as instantly, as completely, as miraculously as though they were ghosts.

“Oh Maida!” Rosie exclaimed. “Deer! How wonderful! Do they belong to your father or are they wild?”

“Those that you saw are dappled deer. Father had them brought here from England,” Maida answered. “But once in a while we do see wild deer in this country.”

“Oh I’d like to see some wild deer,” Arthur said.

Dicky didn’t speak but his eyes were luminous. As for Harold, he was still gasping with the surprise of it.

On they went. The road curved and rippled like a ribbon being constantly thrown ahead of them. Suddenly they came to a great cleared space, smoother than any plush. Botkins stopped the car. At the end towered a huge house of white marble, with terraces. On the lawn, which stretched between the children and the house, grew, widely-separated, a few stately trees; wine-glass elms, oaks; copper beeches and powdered spruces. It was very still now and, unimpeded, the setting sun was sending great golden shafts across that stretch of plushy grass. They struck a pool of water in a marble basin in the middle of that emerald velvet; and through the fountain which played about it. Here ... there ... yonder ... motionless in that liquid golden light ... were white objects....

“What are those white things?” Dicky asked curiously.

And then, one of the white objects arose, opened like a fan, spread to a wonderful size its snow-white tail; moved in stately fashion along the velvety-green lawn.

“Maida!” Dicky gasped. “Not—Yes they are—white peacocks!”

“Yes,” Maida answered. “White peacocks. I am so glad they were there. Everything has happened just as I wanted it. Sometimes it will be days before you see deer, although there are so many here. And sometimes the peacocks wander to the back of the house. I knew you wanted to see them, Dicky, and I’ve been hoping all along that they would be here for you. There are seven. We have a dozen.”

Dicky was listening with all his ears; but at the same time he was looking with all his eyes. For out of the trees to the left, suddenly appeared another pair of peacocks in full sail. Not white ones this time; great prismatic, blue and green creatures—the sun struck bronze lights out of them as they floated on.

“It’s like a fairy tale,” Dicky breathed.

“Are we going to live there?” Rosie asked in an awed tone.

“Oh mercy no!” Maida answered. “That’s father’s house—the Big House. Our house is ever so much nicer.”

“I hope it isn’t any bigger,” Laura said, her voice a little awed too.

Maida laughed a little. “No it’s not quite as big as that,” she admitted.

“Shall I go on, Miss Maida?” Botkins asked.

“Yes, please Botkins,” Maida answered. And they continued to go on through more winding, geometrically perfect, beautifully-kept, gray roads; past armies and armies of trees: high, plumy-tipped, feathery-trunked aristocratic elms; vigorous, irregular-shaped, peasant-like oaks; clumps, gracefully-slender, fluttering a veil of green leaves, of white birch; occasional pine, resinous and shining; beeches; firs. Suddenly everybody exclaimed at once, “Oh see the pond!”

“What pond is it?” Harold asked.

“It’s called by some people Spy Pond,” Maida answered, “but I call it the Magic Mirror. It’s our pond and I think I ought to be allowed to call it what I want.”

“I think so too,” agreed Laura.

“What do you mean by our pond?” Arthur asked.

“Just what I say,” Maida replied promptly. “It’s our pond. It belongs to my father and it’s a part of the grounds of Maida’s Little House. We can go swimming in it every day. That is if we don’t prefer—” She broke off in a little embarrassed laugh.

“Oh Maida you are so full of secrets I could kill you,” Rosie threatened.

Maida only laughed.

They passed the pond which stretched for a considerable distance, long and crescent-shaped between its tree-hung banks, and now they were in the real forest. The road was smooth as always and beautifully-kept, but on both sides, the forest had been left to grow as it pleased. It was filled with underbrush. The tree trunks were obscured by great bushes. Here and there through openings, the children could see gigantic rocks thrusting great heads and shoulders out of the masses of rusty-colored leaves.

“Oh isn’t it lovely!” Rosie said in a perfect ecstasy. “Lovely, lovely, lovely!” she went on repeating dreamily as though caught in a trance of delight. She ended with a scream. “Did you see that? What was it Maida?”

“A woodchuck,” Maida answered smilingly.

Timmie awakened by Rosie’s scream, asked if there were any lions and tigers about. Much disappointed at Maida’s no, he fell asleep again.

And now they seemed to be going up hill, slowly but steadily up. Up, up, up. The car had begun to speed a little. Ahead was another rounding curve. Botkins took it with a flash.

The car came out in front of—

It was one of the little colonial farmhouses a story-and-a-half in height; weather-colored, slant-roofed; to which addition after addition has been added by succeeding generations. It was set in an expanse of lawn, cut cleanly in two by a path of irregularly-shaped, sunken stones, dominated, one on either side, by twin elms of enormous girth and amplitude. The house faced the east.

The additions, which now merged into one long structure, had gone off to the right and the north where they joined a big barn. This barn was the same velvety, gray weather-color as the house but with great doors painted a strange deep old blue which had faded to an even stranger, deeper blue. The sun struck into the open door and shot over the shining sides of half-a-dozen brilliantly colored canoes lying face-downwards on the floor; glittered in the bright-work of half-a-dozen bicycles, drawn up in a line.

The front door of the house opened as the automobile came in sight and a colored man and woman, young and smiling, came out to meet them. The automobile seemed to explode children, who started over the lawn of the house.

What a house it was!

The pointed-topped, pillared vestibule entrance was covered with roses which smothered it in a pink bloom. Hollyhocks, not blooming yet, marched in files along the front of the house. Lilacs, in heavy blossom, bunched in hedges at the ends. At one side, a trumpet vine, with a trunk as thick as iron cable, had crept to the very top spine of the house, was crawling towards the single ample chimney which protruded from the middle of the roof. At the other side, a graceful elm thrust close to the shingles. A syringa bush and a smoke bush grew in front. But charming as was the house, interesting as was the barn, the children’s eyes did not linger long on either of them, because inevitably their gaze fixed on that Annex which made an intermediate house between them. For in the middle of it—yes in it and through it—grew an enormous gnarled oak. Its trunk emerged from the roof and its long level branches spread over it in every direction. More than that—above that roof—securely caught in those flatly-growing, widely-spread branches was a little Tree House.

The colored pair were almost on them now.

“Good afternoon Floribel,” Maida greeted them, “Good afternoon Zeke. Let me introduce you to Mrs. Flynn and Mrs. Dore.”

Then she turned to the rest of the group.

“Children,” she commanded in a tone of happy pride, “behold Maida’s Little House.”

CHAPTER IV THE LITTLE HOUSE

“Do you want to see the place now or wait until after supper?” Maida asked after the last admiring exclamation had died, the last pair of cramped legs had stretched themselves out.

“I’m starved,” Rosie answered instantly, “but I must see everything first.”

The others echoed Rosie’s decision with a fury of enthusiasm.

“We can’t see anything of the back of the house from here,” Arthur said as though that clinched the matter.

And so while Granny Flynn and Mrs. Dore—the little children tagging them in a daze of fatigue, shot with excitement—were being taken care of by Floribel and Zeke, Maida led the older children on a voyage of exploration.

“Now first,” she said in a practical voice, “let’s go off a little distance—so that I can show you the whole lay of the land.”

The six of them returned almost to the spot where they had first caught sight of the Little House.

“I’m going to start by telling you a little of the history of the house,” Maida began importantly. “This is the old Westabrook farmhouse and my father was born here; and his father and his father. It was built in 1645 and Westabrooks have lived in it from that day to this.”

“Oh Maida!” Rosie said in an awed tone, “isn’t that wonderful! Is it just the same as it was then?”

“No, indeed,” Maida answered. “Almost every generation of Westabrooks added something to the original house. The barn was built later and also all those little additions—we call them the Annex—which connect the house with the barn, but it was my father who made the sides of them all windows.”

“Who put the little house in the tree?” Dicky asked.

“My grandfather.”

“Wasn’t it wonderful that they left the tree!” Laura commented.

“Yes. You see my grandmother loved that big old tree dearly and so they saved it for her. Now where shall we go first?”

“Up the tree!” everybody answered.

“All right. I might have known you would have said that,” Maida declared, “when I’m just dying to show you the house.”

The tree grew out of the middle of the Annex. The floor had been fitted neatly about the tree-trunk. Stairs led up to the roof; and from the roof, a short flight of steps led to the Tree House. One after another the children mounted them. It took them into a little square room with windows looking in all four directions.

“Oh I can see Spy Pond—I mean the Magic Mirror!” Rosie exclaimed.

“And from here you can see the Big House,” Laura exclaimed. “Not very much—just a sort of shining....”

“Oh—But—Look—See!” Dicky stuttered in his excitement. “From here you can see the ocean!”

The children deserted the other windows and rushed to Dicky’s side. In the west appeared all a-sparkle what looked like a great heaving mass of melted glass. On and on it stretched, and on, until it cut through the vapory sky and disappeared forever. A few sail boats like great gulls were beating their wings on its glittering surface.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Rosie said in a solemn voice. “It makes me feel almost like not speaking.”

“Wait until you see it in a nor’easter,” Maida promised, “or a great thunder storm.”

“Just think,” Arthur said, “all my life I’ve wanted to learn to sail a boat—”

“You will sometime,” Maida interrupted, “but father says we’ve all got to learn to swim before we can get into a sailboat.”

“I know how to swim,” Arthur stated in an off-hand voice. “All boys do.”

“I don’t,” Dicky remonstrated.

“Well you will in a week,” Maida promised.

Harold had all this time been keenly examining the ocean, the curving line of shore.

“What’s that island off there, Maida?” he asked.

“Everybody else calls it Spectacles Island, because it’s shaped like a pair of spectacles. But I call it Tom Tiddler’s Ground, because nobody lives there. I don’t see why I shouldn’t call it what I want. It’s my island.”

“Your island,” Rosie repeated. “Oh Maida, you lucky girl.”

Maida flushed and looked ashamed. “I mean our island,” she corrected herself.

“Well,” Rosie said in a meditative tone, “with a farmhouse in the country, the ocean with an island in it in front of it; a forest with deer in back of it; and a pond—Maida can you think of anything else that we could possibly have?”

“Well there might be a volcano on the island,” Maida suggested, “a grotto somewhere like the Blue Grotto of Capri; and then of course we have no glaciers, geysers, hot springs, deserts or bogs—”

“Oh you goose!” Rosie interrupted. “You know we couldn’t have any of those things.”

“We might have a cave,” Arthur said. “Are there any caves around here, Maida?”

“Not that I know of,” Maida answered. “Now let me show you the rest of the place. You’ve been so busy looking at the ocean that you haven’t noticed there’s a tennis court and a croquet-ground just below.”

The five excited faces peered out of the open window down through the tree branches and there was, indeed, a great cleared velvety lawn with wickets and stakes at one end and a tennis court marked in white kalsomine at the other.

“Now,” Maida said, “come into the house. Oh I forgot to tell you that I call this tree Father Time because it’s the oldest one on the place. It’s too bad that I named all these things years ago because you could have had the fun of naming them too.”

“But I like all your names, Maida,” Dicky declared.

Climbing down the narrow stairs, Maida conducted them through the two rooms of the Annex which lay between the Tree Room and the Little House. The tiny procession marched first into the kitchen which was the second of these rooms—a big sunny room, the walls painted a deep blue and hanging against them great pans and platters of brass and copper. From the kitchen, they entered the dining room; a big room also which ran the entire width of the house all doors and windows on the western side. A long, wide table in the center; chairs along the walls; and a pair of mahogany sideboards facing each other from the ends—these were its furnishings.

They passed through a door on the eastern wall.