At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern Part 14

"Foundlings' Home," explained d.i.c.k, briefly, with a wink at Harlan.

"They're late this year."

Dorothy was speechless with amazement and despair. Before Harlan had begun to think connectedly, one of the twins had darted into the house and b.u.mped its head on the library door, thereupon making the Jack-o'-Lantern hideous with much lamentation.

The mother, apparently tired out, came in as though she had left something of great value there and had come to get it, pausing only to direct Harlan to pay the stage driver, and have her trunks taken into the rooms opening off the dining-room on the south side.

Willie took a mouth-organ out of his pocket and rendered a hitherto unknown air upon it with inimitable vigour. In the midst of the confusion, Claudius Tiberius had the misfortune to appear, and, immediately perceiving his mistake, whisked under the sofa, from whence the other twin determinedly haled him, using the handle which Nature had evidently intended for that purpose.

"Will you kindly tell me," demanded Mrs. Carr, when she could make herself heard, "what is the meaning of all this?"

"I do not understand you," said the mother of the twins, coldly. "Were you addressing me?"

"I was," returned Mrs. Carr, to d.i.c.k's manifest delight. "I desire to know why you have come to my house, uninvited, and made all this disturbance."

"The idea!" exclaimed the woman, trembling with anger. "Will you please send for Mr. Judson?"

"Mr. Judson," said Dorothy, icily, "has been dead for some time. This house is the property of my husband."

"Indeed! And who may your husband be?" The tone of the question did not indicate even faint interest in the subject under discussion.

Dorothy turned, but Harlan had long since beat an ignominious retreat, closely followed by d.i.c.k, whose idea, as audibly expressed, was that the women be allowed to "fight it out by themselves."

"I can readily understand," went on Dorothy, with a supreme effort at self-control, "that you have made a mistake for which you are not in any sense to blame. You are tired from your journey, and you are quite welcome to stay until to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" shrilled the woman. "I guess you don't know who I am! I am Mrs. Holmes, Rebecca Judson's own cousin, and I have spent the Summer here ever since Rebecca was married! I guess if Ebeneezer knew you were practically ordering his wife's own cousin out of his house, he'd rise from his grave to haunt you!"

Dorothy fancied that Uncle Ebeneezer's portrait moved slightly. Aunt Rebecca still surveyed the room from the easel, gentle, sweet-faced, and saintly. There was no resemblance whatever between Aunt Rebecca and the sallow, hollow-cheeked, wide-eyed termagant, with a markedly receding chin, who stood before Mrs. Carr and defied her.

"This is my husband's house," suggested Dorothy, pertinently.

"Then let your husband do the talking," rejoined Mrs. Holmes, sarcastically. "If he was sure it was his, I guess he wouldn't have run away. I've always had my own rooms here, and I intend to go and come as I please, as I always have done. You can't make me believe that Ebeneezer gave my apartments to your husband, nor him either, and I wouldn't advise any of you to try it."

Sounds of fearful panic came from the chicken yard, and Dorothy rushed out, swiftly laying avenging hands on the disturber of the peace. One of the twins was chasing Abdul Hamid around the coop with a lath, as he explained between sobs, "to make him lay." Mrs. Holmes bore down upon Dorothy before any permanent good had been done.

"How dare you!" she cried. "How dare you lay hands on my child! Come, Ebbie, come to mamma. Bless his little heart, he shall chase the chickens if he wants to, so there, there. Don't cry, Ebbie. Mamma will get you another lath and you shall play with the chickens all the afternoon.

There, there!"

Harlan appeared at this juncture, and in a few quiet, well-chosen words told Mrs. Holmes that the chicken coop was his property, and that neither now nor at any other time should any one enter it without his express permission.

"Upon my word," remarked Mrs. Holmes, still soothing the unhappy twin.

"How high and mighty we are when we're living off our poor dead uncle's bounty! Telling his wife's own cousin what she's to do, and what she isn't! Upon my word!"

So saying, Mrs. Holmes retired to the house, her pace hastened by howls from the other twin, who was in trouble with her older brother somewhere in her "apartment."

Dorothy looked at Harlan, undecided whether to laugh or to cry. "Poor little woman," he said, softly; "don't you fret. We'll have them out of the house no later than to-morrow."

"All of them?" asked Dorothy, eagerly, as Miss St. Clair strolled into the front yard.

Harlan's brow clouded and he s.h.i.+fted uneasily from one foot to the other.

"I don't know," he said, slowly, "whether I've got nerve enough to order a woman out of my house or not. Let's wait and see what happens."

A sob choked Dorothy, and she ran swiftly into the house, fortunately meeting no one on her way to her room. d.i.c.k ventured out of the barn and came up to Harlan, who was plainly perplexed.

"Very, very mild arrival," commented Mr. Chester, desiring to put his host at his ease. "I've never known 'em to come so peacefully as they have to-day. Usually there's more or less disturbance."

"Disturbance," repeated Harlan. "Haven't we had a disturbance to-day?"

"We have not," answered d.i.c.k, placidly. "Wait till young Ebeneezer and Rebecca get more accustomed to their surroundings, and then you'll have a Fourth of July every day, with Christmas, Thanksgiving, and St. Patrick's Day thrown in. Willie is the worst little terror that ever went unlicked, and the twins come next."

"Perhaps you don't understand children," remarked Harlan, with a patronising air, and more from a desire to disagree with d.i.c.k than from anything else. "I've always liked them."

"If you have," commented d.i.c.k, with a knowing chuckle, "you're in a fair way to get cured of it."

"Tell me about these people," said Harlan, ignoring the speech, and dominated once more by healthy human curiosity. "Who are they and where do they come from?"

"They're dwellers from the infernal regions," explained d.i.c.k, with an air of truthfulness, "and they came from there because the old Nick turned 'em out. They were upsetting things and giving the place a bad name. Mrs.

Holmes says she's Aunt Rebecca's cousin, but n.o.body knows whether she is or not. She's come here every Summer since Aunt Rebecca died, and poor old uncle couldn't help himself. He hinted more than once that he'd enjoy her absence if she could be moved to make herself scarce, but it had no more effect than a snowflake would in the place she came from. The most he could do was to build a wing on the house with a separate kitchen and dining-room in it, and take his own meals in the library, with the door bolted.

"Willie is a Winter product and Judson Centre isn't a pleasant place in the cold months, but the twins were born here, five years ago this Summer.

They came in the night, but didn't make any more trouble then than they have every day since."

"What would you do?" asked Harlan, after a thoughtful silence, "if you were in my place?"

"I'd be tickled to death because a kind Providence had married me to Dorothy instead of to Mrs. Holmes. Poor old Holmes is in his well-earned grave."

With great dignity, Harlan walked into the house, but d.i.c.k, occupied with his own thoughts, did not guess that his host was offended.

After the first excitement was over, comparative peace settled down upon the Jack-o'-Lantern. Mrs. Holmes decided the question of where she should eat, by setting four more places at the table when Mrs. Smithers's back was turned. Dorothy did not appear at luncheon, and Mrs. Smithers performed her duties with such p.r.o.nounced ungraciousness that Elaine felt as though something was about to explode.

A long sleep, born of nervous exhaustion, came at last to Dorothy's relief. When she awoke, it was night and the darkness dazed her at first.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes, wondering whether she had been dead, or merely ill.

There was not a sound in the Jack-o'-Lantern, and the events of the day seemed like some hideous nightmare which waking had put to rout. She bathed her face in cool water, then went to look out of the window.

A lantern moved back and forth under the trees in the orchard, and a tall, dark figure, armed with a spade, accompanied it. "It's Harlan," thought Dorothy. "I'll go down and see what he's burying."

But it was only Mrs. Smithers, who appeared much startled when she saw her mistress at her side.

"What are you doing?" demanded Dorothy, seeing that Mrs. Smithers had dug a hole at least a foot and a half each way.

"Just a-satisfyin' myself," explained the handmaiden, with a note of triumph in her voice, "about that there cat. 'Ere's where I buried 'im, and 'ere's where there ain't no signs of 'is dead body. 'E's come back to 'aunt us, that's wot 'e 'as, and your uncle'll be the next."

"Don't be so foolish," snapped Dorothy. "You've forgotten the place, that's all, and I don't wish to hear any more of this nonsense."

"'Oo was it?" asked Mrs. Smithers, "as come out of a warm bed at midnight to see as if folks wot was diggin' for cats found anythink? 'T warn't me, Miss, that's wot it warn't, and I take it that them as follers is as nonsensical as them wot digs. Anyhow, Miss, 'ere's where 'e was buried, and 'ere's where 'e ain't now. You can think wot you likes, that's wot you can."

Claudius Tiberius suddenly materialised out of the surrounding darkness, and after sniffing at the edge of the hole, jumped in to investigate.