The Girls of Hillcrest Farm Part 16

"And I had just as lief sleep in a coffin as in some of these high-headed carved walnut bedsteads," declared 'Phemie.

"You don't have to sleep in them," responded her sister, quietly. "But some people would think it a privilege to do so."

"They can have _my_ share, and no charge," sniffed the younger girl. "That bed downstairs is bad enough. And what would we do for mattresses? That's _one_ antique they wouldn't stand for--believe me! Straw beds, indeed!"

"We'll see about that. We might get some cheap elastic-felt mattresses, one at a time, as we needed them."

"And springs?"

"Some of the bedsteads are roped like the one we sleep on. Others have old-fas.h.i.+oned spiral springs--and there are no better made to-day. The rust can be cleaned off and they can be painted."

"I see plainly you're laying out a lot of work for us," sighed 'Phemie.

"Well, we've got to work to live," responded her sister, briskly.

"Ya-as," drawled 'Phemie, in imitation of Lucas Pritchett. "But I don't want to feel as though I was just living to work!"

"Lazybones!" laughed Lyddy. "You know, if we really got started in this game----"

"A game; is it? Keeping boarders!"

"Well?"

"I fancy it's downright hard work," quoth 'Phemie.

"But if it makes us independent? If it will keep poor father out of the shop? If it can be made to support us?" cried Lyddy.

'Phemie flushed suddenly and her eyes sparkled. She seized her more sedate sister and danced her about the room.

"Oh, I don't care how hard I work if it'll do all that!" she agreed. "Come on, Lyd! Let's write to Aunt Jane right away."

CHAPTER X

THE VENTURE

But Lyddy Bray never made up her mind in a hurry. Perhaps she was inclined to err on the side of caution.

Whereas 'Phemie eagerly accepted a new thing, was enthusiastic about it for a time, and then tired of it unless she got "her second wind," as she herself laughingly admitted, Lyddy would talk over a project a long time before she really decided to act upon it.

It was so in this case. Once having seen the vista of possibilities that Lyddy's plan revealed, the younger girl was eager to plunge into the summer-boarder project at once. But Lyddy was determined to know just what they had to work with, and just what they would need, before broaching the plan to Aunt Jane.

So she insisted upon giving a more than cursory examination to each of the eight chambers on this second floor. Some of the pieces of old furniture needed mending; but most of the mending could be done with a pot of glue and a little ingenuity. Furthermore, a can of prepared varnish and some linseed oil and alcohol would give most of the well-made and age-darkened furniture the gloss it needed.

There were old-style stone-china toilet sets in profusion, and plenty of mirrors, while there was closet room galore. The main lack, as 'Phemie had pointed out, was in the mattress line.

But when the girls climbed to the garret floor they found one finished room there--a very good sleeping-room indeed--and on the bedstead in this room were stacked, one on top of another, at least a dozen feather beds.

Each bed was wrapped in sheets of tarred paper--hermetically sealed from moths or other insect life.

"Oh, for goodness sake, Lyd!" cried 'Phemie, "let's take one of these to sleep on. There are pillows, too; but we've got _them_. Say! we can put one of these beds on top of the straw tick and be in comfort at last."

"All right. But the feather bed would be pretty warm for summer use,"

sighed Lyddy, as she helped her sister lift down one of the beds--priceless treasures of the old-time housewife.

"Country folk--some of them--sleep on feathers the year 'round,"

proclaimed 'Phemie. "Perhaps your summer boarders can be educated up to it--or _down_ to it."

"Well, we'll try the 'down' and see how it works," agreed Lyddy. "My!

these feathers are pressed as flat as a pancake. The bed must go out into the sun and air and be tossed once in a while, so that the air will get through it, before there'll be any 'life' in these feathers. Now, don't try to do it all, 'Phemie. I'll help you downstairs with it in a minute.

I just want to look into the big garret while we're up here. Dear me!

isn't it dusty?"

Such an attractive-looking a.s.sortment of chests, trunks, old presses, boxes, chests of drawers, decrepit furniture, and the like as was set about that garret! There was no end of old clothing hanging from the rafters, too--a forest of garments that would have delighted an old clo'

man; but----

"Oo! Oo! Ooo!" hooted 'Phemie. "Look at the spider webs. Why, I wouldn't touch those things for the whole farm. I bet there are fat old spiders up there as big as silver dollars."

"Well, we can keep away from that corner," said Lyddy, with a shudder. "I don't want old coats and hats. But I wonder what _is_ in those drawers. We shall want bed linen if we go into the business of keeping boarders."

She tried to open some of the nearest presses and bureaus, but all were locked. So, rather dusty and disheveled, they retired to the floor below, between them managing to carry the feather bed out upon the porch where the sun could s.h.i.+ne upon it.

At noon Lyddy "buzzed" Lucas, as 'Phemie called it, about the way folk in the neighborhood cooked with an open fire, and especially about the use of the brick oven that was built into the side of the chimney.

"That air contraption," confessed the young farmer, "ain't much more real use than a fifth leg on a caow--for a fac'. But old folks used 'em. My grandmaw did.

"She useter shovel live coals inter the oven an' build a reg'lar fire on the oven bottom. Arter it was het right up she'd sweep aout the brands and ashes with long-handled brushes, an' then set the bread, an' pies, an' Injun puddin' an' the like--sometimes the beanpot, too--on the oven floor. Ye see, them bricks will hold heat a long time.

"But lemme tell ye," continued Lucas, shaking his head, "it took the _know how_, I reckon, ter bake stuff right by sech means. My maw never could do it. She says either her bread would be all crust, or 'twas raw in the middle.

"But now," pursued Lucas, "these 'ere what they call 'Dutch ovens' ain't so bad. I kin remember before dad bought maw the stove, she used a Dutch oven--an' she's got it yet. I know she'd lend it to you gals."

"That's real nice of you, Lucas," said 'Phemie, briskly. "But what is it?"

"Why, it's a big sheet-iron pan with a tight cover. You set it right in the coals and shovel coals on top of it and all around it. Things bake purty good in a Dutch oven--ya-as'm! Beans never taste so good to my notion as they useter when maw baked 'em in the old Dutch oven. An' dad says they was 'nough sight better when _he_ was a boy an' grandmaw baked 'em in an oven like that one there," and Lucas nodded at the closet in the chimney that 'Phemie had opened to peer into.

"Ye see, it's the slow, steady heat that don't die down till mornin'--that's what bakes beans nice," declared this Yankee epicure.

Lucas had a "knack" with the axe, and he cut and piled enough wood to last the girls at least a fortnight. Lyddy felt as though she could not afford to hire him more than that one day at present; but he was going to town next day and he promised to bring back a pump leather and some few other necessities that the girls needed.

Before he went home Lucas got 'Phemie off to one side and managed to stammer:

"If you gals air scart--or the like o' that--you jest say so an' I'll keep watch around here for a night or two, an' see if I kin ketch the fellers you heard talkin' last night."

"Oh, Lucas! I wouldn't trouble you for the world," returned 'Phemie.