In Blue Creek Canon Part 13

It was a month after their camping party, and she and her mother were comfortably settled in the parlor, with the mending basket between them.

The windows and doors were thrown wide open, and the room was flooded with the yellow sunlight that lay across the floor, while the warm September wind softly fluttered the light draperies. Outside the door, on the piazza, Ben lay snoozing in the sun, sleepily wagging his tail in some happy dream of full-flavored bones or trespa.s.sing cats; and beyond him Victor was trudging up and down the path in front of the house, laden with a tiny scarlet pail filled with sand. Allie glanced thoughtfully about the pretty room, and out at her baby brother; then she turned back to her mother again, as Mrs. Burnam asked,--

"How do you mean, Allie?"

"Why, after all our camping and fun, it seems good to sit down and visit a little, mammy. Don't you see, we haven't had a chance for ever so long, not since Charlie was hurt; and I enjoy it, once in a while.

The other is fun; but I like to stop and talk it over sometimes." And Allie paused meditatively, with one of Howard's long stockings drawn over her hand.

"Yes, I know," her mother answered, while she trimmed a patch to fit the hole which it was intended to fill; "we haven't had a quiet afternoon for a long time, hardly since Charlie came out here, last spring. You've been so busy with the boys that I didn't know whether you'd ever enjoy sitting down with me any more."

"Yes, this is nicest," said Allie. "The boys aren't you, any more than Charlie is Howard. I like them both; but I need you to straighten out things sometimes."

"What is it now?" asked her mother quietly, for she saw from Allie's face that something was troubling her, and, mother-like, she wished to help her little daughter.

"Why, it isn't so much; only something that Grant was telling, something Mrs. Pennypoker said," answered Allie, while she threaded her needle and stuck it in beside the hole. Then she asked abruptly, "Mamma, is it true that Charlie has ever so much money?"

"Yes; that is, he will have, when he grows up," replied Mrs. Burnam, a little surprised at the question, for she had tried to train her children to feel that wealth was by no means the main end in life.

"How much?" persisted Allie.

"A great deal, for Uncle Charlie was a rich man, and our Charlie is his only child."

"Oh!" And Allie lapsed into silence again.

"What made you ask, Allie?" her mother inquired, after a pause.

"Nothing; only Mrs. Pennypoker said somebody told her he was very rich, and that was the reason you'd let him come here, so maybe we could get some of it; and she asked Mrs. Pennypoker if she hadn't seen the way I hadn't had so much to do with Ned and Marjorie since he'd been here, and all. Wasn't it horrid, mamma?"

Mrs. Burnam frowned. She was sorry to have such ideas put into the head of her young daughter; and, during the past five months, she had grown to feel that Charlie was almost one of her own children; so the worldly-wise tone of these comments grated upon her ears.

"Grant had no right to tell you this," she said thoughtfully.

"I don't care if he did," Allie interrupted. "I knew 't wasn't true, and I told him that I didn't think Charlie had any money, and we didn't want any of it, if he had; we'd plenty of our own. But I wish people wouldn't talk such things. I like Ned and Marjorie just as well as I used to; but when Charlie's here in the house, and just as splendid as he can be, I don't see why I shouldn't like him better. n.o.body minded when I was with Howard 'most all the time, and Charlie's just like another brother." And she nodded conclusively as she resumed her work.

Mrs. Burnam watched her steadily for a moment, trying to read whether there was any unspoken thought in her daughter's mind; but Allie looked up, and her blue eyes met her mother's so squarely that Mrs. Burnam was satisfied.

"Charlie does seem just like one of us," she a.s.sented heartily; "and I know we've all enjoyed his being out here; but it isn't because he's rich that we've liked him, it's because he's just what he is, a bright, manly boy, without any airs or nonsense. Aunt Helen asked to have him come to us, because he hadn't any other cousins; and it would have been a pleasant six months for all of us, if it hadn't been for his terrible illness." Mrs. Burnam paused; she could never speak of his accident without a shudder.

"I'm glad it happened," returned Allie proudly. "If it hadn't, we shouldn't ever have known how brave he was. And, besides, if it hadn't been for that, we never should have known Dr. Brownlee half so well, and he wouldn't have gone into camp with us; so you see there was some good came out of it. But didn't we have a fine time in camp, mammy?"

"Yes, I think our camping trip was a success, in more ways than one,"

said Mrs. Burnam, smiling quietly to herself, as she recalled certain scenes in which Louise and the doctor had played a part. There was no doubt in her mind about the enjoyment of two of their number, however the others might have looked upon it.

"But, after all," resumed Allie, going back to her original statement; "I do like getting settled down again; and this vacation has been so stirred up that I believe I shall be glad to have some lessons once more."

"Here comes Ned," said her mother, glancing up from her work as the boy turned the corner and came up the street towards the house. "He's probably after you and the boys for some frolic or other."

"All right; I've just finished my last stocking. Did you ever see anybody make such holes as Howard does?" And she rolled the stockings into a ball and tossed them into the basket, as Ned came up the steps.

"Hullo!" he remarked, dropping into the chair from which Allie had just risen, and helping himself to her orderly work-basket. "Where are the other fellows?"

"They've gone up the creek fis.h.i.+ng," answered Allie, watching, with an anxious face, while Ned investigated her papers of needles, and then turned his attention to her b.u.t.ton bag.

"They must want something to do," returned Ned scornfully. "I should think you about lived on fish, up here."

"They don't often catch anything," said Mrs. Burnam, laughing; "not even colds. Howard fell into the creek, day before yesterday, and then sat around in his wet clothes all the afternoon; but it didn't seem to hurt him any."

"I tried that once," said Ned, as he stealthily put the basket on the floor, just behind Allie, where she could not fail to step in it and overturn it; "but I had the worst of it, for Cousin Euphemia saw me when I came home. She put me to bed, right in the middle of the day, and made me take some hot ginger-tea. Ugh, what a mess 't was! I'd rather have had a dozen colds than be choked to death, and left to stew in a flannel blanket. But what I came to say, Allie--Oh, isn't that too bad! You've upset your basket."

"What a wretch you are, Ned!" And Allie slyly dropped a large, flat b.u.t.ton down inside his collar, as she stooped to pick up her scattered treasures. "You've done this before, and I know just how sorry you are."

"I didn't do a single thing," returned Ned innocently. "How'd I know you were going to put your foot in it that way? But I stopped to see if some of you didn't want to go up the gulch this afternoon. It's not so very warm, and Lou and Grant are going, so I said I'd hurry on ahead and get you to come too. Here they are, now."

"I'll go; wait till I get my hat." And Allie vanished.

"Come along too, Mrs. Burnam," said Ned persuasively.

"I wish I could, Ned; but I must stay with Vic, for Janey has gone out this afternoon. You'd better stop in here, all of you, when you come back, though. The boys will be home by that time, and I want to see Louise, too," she added, as Ned and Allie went down the steps.

At the west side of the town, the mountains rose up, sheer and straight, their slopes ending abruptly at the outer streets, which were carefully laid out and numbered, although no houses had yet been built there.

However, the low, even ground was elaborately divided into blocks, and the blocks, in their turn, into building lots, to be in readiness for the possible purchaser, who might appear at any moment. On the boundary line between the town and this suburban region was the little brick school-house; and beyond it lay the open ground which now, in the absence of any inhabitants, was still used as a wood yard for the distant smelter, whose constant fires easily devoured the vast piles of wood daily unloaded by the trains which ran down the spur of track leading to the yard. Beyond this again were the mountains, which rose to their highest point just to the west of the town, where the tips of the tallest peaks were always blanketed with the soft, white piles of snow.

At only one spot their unbroken front was interrupted, where a deep, narrow ravine led far up among the mountains, forming a delightful walk in a warm summer day. After the burning glare on the dry, sandy soil of the town, which, in its barren lack of gra.s.s and trees, stared back at the sun like a lidless, lashless eye, the cool shadows of the pines in the gulch were a refres.h.i.+ng change. The little gulch had its variety of names: Bear Gulch, it was called, Lover's Gulch, and even Cemetery Gulch, from the lonely burial ground perched on the top of the rugged bluff at its entrance.

Ned and Allie had taken the lead, with Louise and Grant following close behind them, as they picked their way among the countless tin cans scattered over the fields, or paused to look and laugh while the boys clambered to the top of the long wood-piles, and ran slow, unsteady races over their uneven surfaces. Then they came out to the track, and followed along its course, where Ned and Allie joined hands and walked the rails, and Grant trudged along behind them, stepping with an elaborate care upon each one of the ties, or leaping over occasional cattle-guards, as they crossed his path.

They were far past the western houses of the town, and rapidly approaching the foot of the mountain, when Ned gave Allie's hand a violent twitch.

"Look back!" he exclaimed in an undertone.

With a little cry of alarm, Allie sprang from the track; then, as she glanced back over her shoulder, she burst out laughing.

"How you scared me, Ned!" she said, as she stopped abruptly. "I thought 'twas a train, but it's only Dr. Hornblower."

True enough; up the track behind them came the excellent doctor, waving his cane in amicable salutation, as he strode along at a pace which might have put to shame the wearer of the famous seven-league boots. His leathery skin was dark and s.h.i.+ning from the violence of his exercise, as he came sweeping on towards them, till he paused by the side of Louise, who watched him with some anxiety while he stood wheezing and panting before her.

"My dear Miss Everett," he said, when he could regain his breath enough to speak once more; "are you not afraid to walk so rapidly at this alt.i.tude? I fear you may over-exert yourself some day." He paused for a moment, puffing like the engine of an overloaded freight train; then he resumed, "I called at your residence, and was so regretful at not finding you at home that your cousin, Mrs. Pennypoker, told me that you were bound for the gulch, and a.s.sured me that there was--um--some prospect of my overtaking, not to say catching up with you."

"Are you out on the round-up again to-day, Dr. Hornblower?" asked Ned soberly.

The Reverend Gabriel looked at him with a perplexed countenance.

"I am afraid that I do not perfectly apprehend your meaning," he said.

"Why, you said, last time you called on Lou, that you were hunting up stray sheep, and I didn't know but you were out after some more to-day,"

Ned explained, with a naughty satisfaction in his sister's struggles to repress her smiles.

But Dr. Hornblower was quite unmoved. His professional dignity rose to the surface, and his voice took on its Sunday tw.a.n.g as he replied pompously,--

"No, Edward; the sheep are all in the fold. To-day I am only in search of congenial society." And he bowed gravely to Louise.