The Happy Venture by Edith Ballinger Price

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THE HAPPY VENTURE

BY

EDITH BALLINGER PRICE

AUTHOR OF "BLUE MAGIC,"
"US AND THE BOTTLEMAN,"
"SILVER SHOAL LIGHT," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY

THE AUTHOR

Published in 1920, 1921, by The Century Co.

CONTENTS

I TALES IN THE RAIN
II HAVOC
III UP STAKES
IV THE FINE OLD FARMHOUSE
V THE WHEELS BEGIN TO TURN
VI THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HEDGE
VII A-MAYING
VIII WORK
IX FAME COMES COURTING
X VENTURES AND ADVENTURES
XI THE NINE GIFTS
XII "ROSES IN THE MOONLIGHT"
XIII "THE SEA IS A TYRANT"
XIV THE CELESTINE PLAYS HER PART
XV MARTIN!
XVI ANOTHER HOME-COMING

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"Now can you see it? _Now_?"
The Maestro sat down beside Kirk
The slack length of it flew suddenly aboard
"Phil--Phil!" Kirk was saying then

THE HAPPY VENTURE

CHAPTER I

[Illustration: "Now can you see it? _Now?_"]

TALES IN THE RAIN

"'How should I your true love know,
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon...'"

It was the fourth time that Felicia, at the piano, had begun the old
song. Kenelm uncurled his long legs, and sat up straight on the
window-seat.

"Why on earth so everlasting gloomy, Phil?" he said. "Isn't the rain bad
enough, without that dirge?"

"The sky's 'be-weeping' him, just the way it says," said Felicia. She
made one complete revolution on the piano-stool, and brought her strong
fingers down on the opening notes of another verse.

"'He is dead and gone, ladie,
He is dead and--'"

Kenelm sat down again in the window-seat.
He knew that Felicia was anxious about their
mother, and he himself shared her anxiety.
The queer code of fraternal secrecy made him
refrain from showing any sign of this to his
sister, however. He yawned a little, and said,
rather brusquely:

"This rain's messing up the frost pretty well. There shouldn't be much
left of it by now."

"Crocuses soon ..." Felicia murmured. She began humming to an almost
inaudible accompaniment on the piano:

"'Ring, ting, it is the merrie springtime....'"

The rain rolled dully down the clouded window-panes and spattered off
the English-ivy leaves below the sill. They quivered up and down on pale
stems--bright, waxed leaves, as shining as though they had been
varnished.

Kirk drifted in and made his way to Felicia.

"She's better," he observed. "She said she was glad we were having
fun." He frowned a little as he ran his finger reflectively down
Felicia's sleeve. "But she's bothered. She has think-lines in her
forehead. I felt 'em."

"You have a think-line in your own forehead," said Felicia, promptly
kissing it away. "Don't _you_ bother."

"Where's Ken?" Kirk demanded.

"In the window-seat."

Thither Kirk went, a tumble of expectancy, one hand before him and his
head back. He leaped squarely upon Ken, and made known his wishes at
once. They were very much what Kenelm expected.

"See me a story--a long one!"

"Oh, law!" Kenelm sighed; "you must think I'm made of 'em. Don't crawl
all over me; let me ponder for two halves of a shake."

Kirk subsided against his brother's arm, and a "think-line" now became
manifest on Kenelm's brow.

"See me a story"--Kirk's own queer phrase--had been the demand during
most of his eight years. It seemed as though he could never have enough
of this detail of a world visible to every one but himself. He must know
how everything looked--even the wind, which could certainly be _felt_,
and the rain, and the heat of the fire. From the descriptions he had
amassed through his unwearied questioning, he had pieced out for himself
a quaint little world of color and light,--how like or unlike the
actuality no one could possibly tell.

"Blue is a cool thing, like water, or ice clinking in your glass," he
would say, "and red's hot and sizzly, like the fire."

"Very true," his informants would agree; but for all that, they could
not be sure what his conception might be of the colors.

Things were so confusing! There, for instance, were tomatoes. They were
certainly very cool things, if you ate them sliced (when you were
allowed), yet you were told that they were as red as red could be! And
nothing could have been hotter than the blue tea-pot, when he picked it
up by its spout; but that, to be sure, was caused by the tea. Yet the
_hot_ wasn't any color; oh, dear!

Ken had not practised the art of seeing stories for nothing. He plunged
in with little hesitation, and with a grand flourish.

"My tale is of kings, it is," he said; "ancient kings--Babylonian kings,
if you must know. It was thousands and thousands of years ago they
lived, and you'd never be able to imagine the wonderful cities they
built. They had hanging gardens that were----" Felicia interrupted.

"It's easy to tell where you got _this_ story. I happen to know where
your marker is in the Ancient History."

"Never you mind where I got it," Ken said. "I'm trying to describe a
hanging garden, which is more than you could do. As I was about to say,
the hanging gardens were built one above the other; they didn't really
hang at all. They sat on big stone arches, and the topmost one was so
high that it stuck up over the city walls, which were quite high enough
to begin with. The tallest kinds of trees grew in the gardens; not just
flowers, but big palm-trees and oleanders and citron-trees, and
pomegranates hung off the branches all ready to be picked,--dark greeny,
purpley pomegranates all bursting open so that their bright red seeds
showed like live coals (do you think I'm getting this out of the history
book, Phil?), and they were _this_-shaped--" he drew a pomegranate on
the back of Kirk's hand--"with a sprout of leaves at the top. And there
were citrons--like those you chop up in fruit-cake--and grapes and
roses. The queen could sit in the bottomest garden, or walk up to the
toppest one by a lot of stone steps. She had a slave-person who went
around behind her with a pea-cock-feathery fan, all green and gold and
beautiful; and he waved the fan over her to keep her cool. Meanwhile,
the king would be coming in at one of the gates of the city. They were
huge, enormous brass gates, and they shone like the sun, bright, and the
sun winked on the king's golden chariot, too, and on the soldiers'
spears.

"He was just coming home from a lion-hunt, and was very much pleased
because he'd killed a lot of lions. He was really a rather horrid
man,--quite ferocious, and all,--but he wore most wonderful purple and
red embroidered clothes, the sort you like to hear about. He had a tiara
on, and golden crescents and rosettes blazed all over him, and he wore a
mystic, sacred ornament on his chest, round and covered all over with
queer emblems. He rode past the temple, where the walls were painted in
different colors, one for each of the planets and such, because the
Babylonish people worshipped those--orange for Jupiter, and blue for
Mercury, and silver for the moon. And the king got out of his chariot
and climbed up to where the queen was waiting for him in the toppest
gar--"

"Don't you tell me they were so domestic and all," Felicia objected.
"They probably--"

"Who's seeing this story?" Ken retorted. "You let me be. I say, the
queen was waiting for him, and she gave him a lotus and a ripe
pomegranate, and the slaves ran and got wine, and the people with harps
played them, and she said--Here's Mother!"

Kirk looked quite taken aback for a moment at this apparently irrelevant
remark of the Babylonian queen, till a faint rustle at the doorway told
him that it was his own mother who had come in.

She stood at the door, a slight, tired little person, dressed in one of
the black gowns she had worn ever since the children's father had died.

"Don't stop, Ken," she smiled. "What did she say?"

But either invention flagged, or self-consciousness intervened, for
Kenelm said:

"Blessed if I know what she _did_ say! But at any rate, you'll agree
that it was quite a garden, Kirky. I'll also bet a hat that you haven't
done your lesson for to-morrow. It's not _your_ Easter vacation, if it
is ours. Miss Bolton will hop you."

"Think of doing silly reading-book things, after hearing all that," Kirk
sighed.

"Suppose you had to do cuneiform writing on a dab of clay, like the
Babylonish king," Ken said; "all spikey and cut in, instead of sticking
out; much worse than Braille. Go to it, and let Mother sit here,
laziness."

Kirk sighed again, a tremendous, pathetic sigh, designed to rouse
sympathy in the breasts of his hearers. It roused none, and he wandered
across the room and dragged an enormous book out upon the floor. He
sprawled over it in a dim corner, his eyes apparently studying the
fireplace, and his fingers following across the page the raised dots
which spelled his morrow's lesson. What nice hands he had, Felicia
thought, watching from her seat, and how delicately yet strongly he used
them! She wondered what he could do with them in later years. "They
mustn't be wasted," she thought. She glanced across at Ken. He too was
looking at Kirk, with an oddly sober expression, and when she caught his
eye he grew somewhat red and stared out at the rain.

"Better, Mother dear?" Felicia asked, curling down on a footstool at
Mrs. Sturgis's feet.

"Rather, thank you," said her mother, and fell silent, patting the arm
of the chair as though she were considering whether or not to say
something more. She said nothing, however, and they sat quietly in the
falling dusk, Felicia stroking her mother's white hand, and Ken humming
softly to himself at the window. Kirk and his book were almost lost in
the corner--just a pale hint of the page, shadowed by the hand which
moved hesitantly across it. The hand paused, finally, and Kirk demanded,
"What's 'u-g-h' spell?"

"It spells 'Ugh'!" Ken grunted. "What on earth are you reading? Is
_that_ what Miss Bolton gives you!"

"It's not my lesson," Kirk said; "it's much further along. But I can
read it."

"You'll get a wigging. You'd better stick to 'The cat can catch the
mouse,' _et cetera_."

"I finished that _years_ ago," said Kirk, loftily. "This is a different
book, even. Listen to this: 'Ugh! There--sat--the dog with eyes--as--big
as--as--'"

"Tea-cups," said Felicia.

"'T-e-a-c-' yes, it _is_ tea-cups," Kirk conceded; "how did you know,
Phil?--'as big as tea-cups,--staring--at--him. "You're a nice--fellow,"
said the soldier, and he--sat him--on--the witch's ap-ron, and took as
many cop--copper shillings--as his--pockets would hold.'"

"So that's it, is it?" Ken said. "Begin at the beginning, and let's hear
it all."

"Ken," said his mother, "that's in the back of the book. You shouldn't
encourage him to read things Miss Bolton hasn't given him."

"It'll do him just as much good to read that, as that silly stuff at the
beginning. Phil and I always read things we weren't supposed to have
reached."

"But for him--" Mrs. Sturgis murmured; "you and Phil were different, Ken.
Oh, well,--"

For Kirk had turned back several broad pages, and began:

"There came a soldier marching along the highroad--one, two! one,
two!..."

Little by little the March twilight settled deeper over the room. There
was only a flicker on the brass andirons, a blur of pale blossoms where
the potted azalea stood. The rain drummed steadily, and as steadily came
the gentle modulations of Kirk's voice, as the tale of "The Tinder-Box"
progressed.

It was the first time that he had ever read aloud anything so ambitious,
and his hearers sat listening with some emotion--his mother filled with
thankfulness that he had at last the key to a vast world which he now
might open at a touch; Ken, with a sort of half-amazed pride in the
achievements of a little brother who was surmounting such an obstacle.
Felicia sat gazing across the dim room.

"He's reading us a story!" she thought, over and over; "Kirk's reading
to us, without very many mistakes!" She reflected that the book, for
her, might as well be written in Sanskrit. "I ought to know something
about it," she mused; "enough to help him! It's selfish and stupid not
to! I'll ask Miss Bolton."

The soldier had gone only as far as the second dog's treasure-room, when
Maggie came to the door to say that supper was ready. From between the
dining-room curtains came the soft glow of the candles and the inviting
clink of dishes. "'He threw--away all the copper--money he had, and
filled his--knapsack with silver,'" Kirk finished in a hurry, and shut
the book with a bang.

"I wouldn't have done that," he said, as Felicia took the hand he held
out for some one to take; "I should think all the money he could
possibly get would have been useful."

"You've said it!" Ken laughed.

"Yes," Mrs. Sturgis murmured with a sigh, "all the money one can get
_is_ useful. You read it very beautifully, darling--thank you."

She kissed his forehead, and took her place at the head of the table,
where the candles lit her gentle face and her brown eyes--filled now,
with a sudden brimming tenderness.

CHAPTER II

HAVOC

The town ran, in its lower part, to the grimy water-front, where there
was ever a noise of the unloading of ships, the shouts of teamsters, and
the clatter of dray-horses' big hoofs on bare cobblestones. Ken liked to
walk there, even on such a dreary March day as this, when the horses
splashed through puddles, and the funnels of the steamers dripped
sootily black. He had left Felicia in the garden, investigating the
first promise of green under the leaf-coverlet of the perennial bed.
Kirk was with her, questing joyously down the brick path, and breathing
the warm, wet smell of the waking earth.

Ken struck down to the docks; even before he reached the last dingy
street he could see the tall masts of a sailing-ship rising above the
warehouse roofs. It was with a quickened beat of the heart that he ran
the last few steps, and saw her in all her quiet dignity--the
_Celestine_, four-masted schooner. It was not often that sailing vessels
came into this port. Most of the shipping consisted of tugs with their
barges, high black freighters, rust-streaked; and casual tramp steamers
battered by every wind from St. John's to Torres Straits. The
_Celestine_ was, herself, far from being a pleasure yacht. Her bluff
bows were salt-rimed and her decks bleached and weather-bitten. But she
towered above her steam-driven companions with such stalwart grace, such
simple perfection, that Ken caught his breath, looking at her.

The gang-plank was out, for she lay warped in to one of the wharves, and
Ken went aboard and leaned at the rail beside a square man in a black
jersey, who chewed tobacco and squinted observantly at the dock. From
this person, at first inclined to be taciturn, Ken learned that the
_Celestine_ was sailing the next night, bound for Rio de Janeiro, "and
mebbe further." Rio de Janeiro! And here she lay quietly at the slimy
wharf, beyond which the gray northern town rose in a smoky huddle of
chimney-pots.

Behind Ken, some of the crew began hoisting the foresail to dry. He
heard the rhythmic squeak of the halliards through the sheaves, and the
scrape of the gaff going up.

"Go 'n lend 'em a hand, boy, since yer so gone on it," the jerseyed one
recommended quite understandingly. So Ken went and hauled at a rope, and
watched the great expanse of sodden gray canvas rise and shiver and
straighten into a dark square against the sky. He imagined himself one
of the crew of the _Celestine_, hoisting the foresail in a South
American port.

"I'd love to roll to Rio
Some day before I'm old..."

The sail rose steadily to the unsung chorus. Ken was quite happy.

He walked all the way home--it was a long walk--with his head full of
plans for a seafaring life, and his nostrils still filled with the
strange, fascinating, composite smell of the docks.

Felicia met him at the gate. She looked quite done for, he thought, and
she caught his sleeve.

"Where _have_ you been?" she said, with a queer little excited hitch in
her voice. "I've been almost wild, waiting for you. Mother's headache
is horribly worse; she's gone to bed. A letter came this morning, I
don't know what, but I think it has something to do with her being so
ill. She simply cries and cries--a frightening sort of crying--and says,
'I can't--can't!' and wants Father to tell her what to do."

They were in the hall by this time.

"Wants _Father_!" Ken said gravely. "Have you got the doctor, Phil?"

"Not yet; I wanted to ask you."

"Get him--quick."

Ken ran upstairs. Halfway, he tumbled over something crouched beside the
banisters. It was Kirk, quite wretched. He caught Ken's ankle.

"Mother's crying," he said; "I can hear her. Oh, _do_ something, Ken!"

"I'm going to," said his brother. "Don't sit here in the dark and make
yourself miserable."

He recollected that the landing was no darker for Kirk than any other
place, and added: "You're apt to be stepped on here--I nearly smashed
you. Hop along and tell Maggie that I'm as hungry as an ostrich." But
however hungry Ken may have been as he trudged home from the docks, he
was not so now. A cold terror seized him as he leaned above his mother,
who could not, indeed, stop her tears, nor tell him more than that she
could not bear it, she could not. Ken had never before felt quite so
helpless. He wished, as much as she, that his father were there to tell
them what to do--his tall, quiet father, who had always counseled so
well. He breathed a great thankful sigh when the doctor came in, with
Felicia, white faced, peeping beside his shoulder. Ken said, "I'm glad
you'll take charge, sir," and slipped out.

He and Felicia stood in Kirk's room, silently, and after what seemed an
eternity, the doctor came out, tapping the back of his hand with his
glasses. He informed them, with professional lack of emotion, that their
mother was suffering from a complete nervous breakdown, from which it
might take her months to recover.

"Evidently," said he, "she has been anxious over something, previous to
this, but some definite shock must have caused the final collapse."

He was a little man, and he spoke drily, with a maddening deliberation.
"There was a letter--this morning," Felicia said, faintly.

"It might be well to find the letter, in order to ascertain the exact
nature of the shock," said the doctor.

Ken went to his mother's room and searched her desk. He came back
presently with a legal envelop, and his face was blank and half
uncomprehending. The doctor took the paper from him and skimmed the
contents.

"Ah--_hm_. 'United Stock ... the mine having practically run out ... war
causing further depreciation ... regret to inform you, ... _hm_, yes. My
dear young people, it appears from this that your mother has lost a good
deal of money--possibly all her money. I should advise your seeing her
attorney at once. Undoubtedly he will be able to make a satisfactory
adjustment."

He handed the paper back to Ken, who took it mechanically. Then, with
the information that it would be necessary for their mother to go to a
sanatorium to recuperate, and that he would send them a most capable
nurse immediately, the doctor slipped out--a neat little figure,
stepping along lightly on his toes. "Can you think straight, Ken?"
Felicia said, later, in the first breathing pause after the doctor's
departure and the arrival of the brisk young woman who took possession
of the entire house as soon as she stepped over the threshold.

"I'm trying to," Ken replied, slowly. He began counting vaguely on his
fingers. "It means Mother's got to go away to a nervous sanatorium
place. It means we're poor. Phil, we may have to--I don't know what."

"What do they do with people who have no money?" Felicia asked dismally.
"They send them to the poor-farm or something, don't they?"

"Don't talk utter bosh, Phil! As if I'd ever let you or Kirk go to the
poor-farm!"

"Kirk!" Felicia murmured. "Suppose they took him away! They might, you
know--the State, and send him to one of those institutions!"

"Oh, drop it!" snapped Ken. "We don't even know how much money it is
Mother's lost. I don't suppose she had it all in this bally mine. Who
_is_ her attorney, anyway!"

"Mr. Dodge,--don't you remember? Nice, with a pink face and bristly
hair. He came here long ago about Daddy's business."

There was a swift rush of feet on the stairs, a pause in the hallway,
and Kirk appeared at the door.

"I told Maggie," said he, "and supper's ready. And what's _specially_
nice is the toast, because I made it myself--only Norah told me when it
was done."

Ken and Felicia looked at one another, and wondered how much supper they
could eat. Then Ken swung Kirk to his shoulder, and said:

"All right, old boy, we'll come and eat your toast."

"Is the crackly lady taking care of Mother?" Kirk asked over a piece of
his famous toast, as they sat at supper.

"Yes," said Felicia. "Her name's Miss McClough. Why, did you meet her?"

"She said, 'Don't sit in people's way when you see they're in a hurry,'"
said Kirk, somewhat grieved. "_I_ didn't know she was coming. I don't
think I like her much. Her dress creaks, and she smells like the
drug-store."

"She can't help that," said Ken; "she's taking good care of Mother. And
I told you the stairway was no place to sit, didn't I!"

"I've managed to find out _something_," Ken told Felicia, next day, as he
came downstairs. "Mother would talk about it, in spite of Miss McThing's
protests, and I came away as soon as I could. She says there's a little
Fidelity stock that brings enough to keep her in the rest-place, so she
feels a little better about that. (By the way, she tried to say she
wouldn't go, and I said she had to.) Then there's something else--Rocky
Head Granite, I think--that will give us something to live on. We'll
have to see Mr. Dodge as soon as we can; I'm all mixed up."

They did see Mr. Dodge, that afternoon. He was nice, as Felicia had
said. He made her sit in his big revolving-chair, while he brought out a
lot of papers and put on a pair of drooping gold eye-glasses to look at
them. And the end of the afternoon found Ken and Felicia very much
confused and a good deal more discouraged than before. It seemed that
even the Rocky Head Granite was not a very sound investment, and that
the staunch Fidelity was the only dependable source of income.

"And Mother must have that money, of course, for the rest-place,"
Felicia said. "For Heaven's sake, don't tell her," Ken muttered.

His sister shot him one swift look of reproach and then turned to Mr.
Dodge. She tried desperately to be very businesslike.

"What do you advise us to do, Mr. Dodge?" she said. "Send away the
servants, of course."

"And Miss Bolton," Ken said; "she's an expensive lady."

"Yes, Miss Bolton. I'll teach Kirk--I can."

"How much is the rent of the house, Mr. Dodge, do you know?" Ken asked.
Mr. Dodge did know, and told him. Ken whistled. "It sounds as though
we'd have to move," he said.

"The lease ends April first," said the attorney.

"We could get a little tiny house somewhere," Felicia suggested.
"Couldn't you get quite a nice one for six hundred dollars a year?"

This sum represented, more or less, their entire income--minus the
expenses of Hilltop Sanatorium.

"But what would you eat?" Mr. Dodge inquired gently.

"Oh, dear, that's true!" said Felicia. And clothes! What _do_ you think
we'd better do?"

"You have no immediate relatives, as I remember?" Mr. Dodge mused.

"None but our great-aunt, Miss Pelham," Ken said, "and _she_ lives in
Los Angeles."

"She's very old, too," Phil said, "and lives in a tiny house. She's not
at all well off; we shouldn't want to bother her. And there is Uncle
Lewis."

"Oh, _him_!" said Ken, gloomily.

"It takes three months even to get an answer from a letter to him,"
Felicia explained. "He's in the Philippines, doing something to
Ignorants."

"Igorrotes, Phil," Ken muttered.

"He sounds unpromising," Mr. Dodge sighed. "And there are no friends who
would be sufficiently interested in your problem to open either their
doors or their pocket-books?"

"We don't know many people here," Felicia said. "Mother hasn't gone out
very much for several years."

Ken flushed. "And we'd rather people didn't open anything to us,
anyhow," he said.

"Except, perhaps, their hearts," Mr. Dodge supplemented, "or their
eyes, when they see your independent procedure!" He tapped his knee with
his glasses. "My dear children, I suggest that you move to some other
house--perhaps to some quaint little place in the country, which would
be much less expensive than anything you could find in town. Your mother
had best go away, as the doctor advises--she will be much better looked
after, and of course she mustn't know what you do. I'll watch over this
Rocky Head concern, and you may feel perfectly secure in the Fidelity.
And don't hesitate to ask me anything you want to know, at any time."

He rose, pushing back his papers.

"Don't we owe you something for all this, sir?" Ken asked, rather red.

Mr. Dodge smiled. "One dollar, and other valuable considerations," he
said.

Kenelm brought out his pocketbook, and carefully pulled a dollar bill
from the four which it contained. He presented it to Mr. Dodge, and
Felicia said:

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