Our Next-Door Neighbors Part 6

But will you please account for the phenomenon of the utter absence of Polydores at the present period? Has Huldah at last carried out her oft-repeated threat of exterminating the Polydore race?"

"Pythagoras," explained Silvia dejectedly, "has gone to the doctor's.

He broke his wrist this morning. Diogenes is lost and Emerald has gone to look for him--"

"Oh, why hunt him up?" I remonstrated. "Maybe Emerald, too, will get lost or strayed or stolen."

"Huldah," continued Silvia, "has locked Demetrius in the cellar. I am unable to report on Ptolemy. Huldah is half sick, but she won't go to bed. She said no beds in Bedlamite for her. But I have a wonderful plan to suggest. There is relief in sight if you will consent."

"I will consent to any committable crime on the calendar," I a.s.sured her, "that will lead to the parting of the Polydore path from ours.

Divulge."

"We both need a change and rest. Today I heard of a most alluring, inexpensive, unfrequented resort called Hope Haven. Unfas.h.i.+onable, fine fis.h.i.+ng, beautiful scenery, twelve miles from a railroad, and a stage stops there but once a day."

"If there is such a place, we'll go there at once, though why such an enticing spot should be unfrequented is beyond me. Do we leave the Polydores to their fate, or as a town charge?"

"We'll leave them to Huldah. She offered to keep them here if we'd take the outing. She said she'd either give them free rein or beat their brains out."

"Then I see where the Polydores land in a juvenile jail, or else I return to defend Huldah for a charge of murder. We'll take our departure by night--tomorrow night--and like the Arabs, or the Polydore parents, silently steal away."

"Lucien," said Silvia constrainedly, when we had arranged the details of our plan, "if you wouldn't object too much, I should like to take Diogenes with us. He hasn't missed his mother, but I really believe he'd be homesick without me."

"Take him, of course," I said. "He's manageable away from the others.

I plainly see you've formed the Polydore habit, and maybe a partial parting from the Polydores would be wiser, but we'll take Diogenes as an antidote against too perfect a time. But I forgot to tell you that I had a letter from Rob today. He plans to come and make his visit now and will arrive next Monday. I'll write him to join us at Hope Haven. You must write down again for me the route we take to get there."

Silvia laughed hopelessly.

"It never rains but it pours. I had a letter from Beth this afternoon, and she says she would like to come to us now. She arrives Monday.

Here is her letter."

"Great minds! It is quite a coincidence," I declared.

"I thought it would be so nice to have Beth go with us to this resort."

"It can't be done," I said. "That is, they can't both go. I am not going to let even Rob Rossiter slight my sister."

"Still it would be a triumph to have her change his mind--or his heart. You know a woman-hater always succ.u.mbs to the right girl."

"In books, yes!"

I had been scanning Beth's letter and I laughed derisively as I read aloud: "'I am so curious to see those next-door children. When you first wrote of the "Polydores" I never once thought of them as children.'"

"She thought exactly right," I told Silvia, and then continued reading: "'I supposed them to be something like tadpoles or polliwogs.

I really think I shall enjoy them.'"

"It would serve her right," I said, "to let her come and stay with them here in our absence. She'd get the cure for enjoyment all right.

Rob wrote of them in the same strain and says he, too, is curious to meet the missing links."

"Does she know," asked Silvia, "how Rob regards women?"

"No; I've always made some excuse to her for not having them meet. I didn't want to hear her make disparaging remarks about him, and she is such a flirt, she'd try to draw him out and he would shut up like a clam."

"Well, I think," decided Silvia, "that the best way out of it is to write Rob to postpone his visit and I will write Beth to come direct to Hope Haven."

"Yes," I agreed, "that will be fine. She shall have charge of dear little Di and study the evolutions of the Polydores later."

I approved this plan. So we wrote our letters and stealthily, but joyously, prepared for our getaway, leaving the house like thieves in the night and bearing the sleeping cherub, Diogenes.

Silvia sighed in relief when we were aboard the train.

"I feel quite chesty," she declared, "at being smart enough to outwit Ptolemy, the wizard."

"I have the feeling," I observed forebodingly, "that they may be on the train or underneath it."

The next morning we reached Windy Creek, the station nearest our destination, and continued our journey by stage.

"People will think you have consoled yourself very speedily for the death of your first husband," I observed, as we were en route.

"Why, what do you mean, Lucien?"

"You know Diogenes addresses me as stepdaddy. It is the only word he speaks plainly."

"Oh!" she exclaimed in perturbation, "I never thought of that! Well, we can explain to everyone, or I'll teach them to leave off the 'step.'"

"Not on your life!" I demurred.

"He had better call you Lucien, then. Emerald calls his father 'Felix.'"

She at once began her tutelage of the bewildered Diogenes. After several stabs at p.r.o.nouncing Lucien he managed to evolve "Ocean" to which he sometimes affixed "step" so that people to whom he was not explained doubtless thought me the latest thing in dances.

Hope Haven was like most resorts--a place safe to shun. There was a low, flat stretch of woods in which a clearing had been made for a barn-like structure called a hotel, with rooms rough and not always ready. The beautiful recreation grounds mentioned in the advertising matter consisted of a plowed field worked over into a s.p.a.ce designated as a tennis court and a gra.s.s-grown croquet ground.

"Anyway," claimed Silvia hopefully, "it's a treat to see woods, water, and sky unconfined."

She devoted the remainder of the morning to unpacking and after luncheon set off to explore the woods, borrowing from the landlady a little cart for Diogenes to ride in. My plan to go in swimming was delayed by my garrulous landlord.

I was just starting for the lake when I heard sounds from the woods that alarmed the landlord but which I instantly recognized as the Polydore yell. A moment later I saw Silvia emerging at full speed into the open, drawing the cart in which Diogenes was doubled up like a jackknife. I hastened to meet them.

"Oh, Lucien," exclaimed my wife tearfully, "we are bitten to bits!

Just look at poor little Di!"

I lifted the howling child from the cart. His face, neck, and hands were stringy and purplish--a cross between an eggplant and a round steak.

"Mosquitoes!" explained Silvia. "They came in flocks and they advertised particularly 'no mosquitoes.'"

A dour-faced guest paused in pa.s.sing.

"There aren't--many," she declared. "Very few, in fact, compared to the number of black flies, sand fleas, and jiggers. However, you'll find more discomfort from the poison ivy, I imagine."

"Lucien," began Silvia in lament.