Strawberry Acres by Grace S. Richmond

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Strawberry Acres

By GRACE S. RICHMOND

1911

TO THE OWNER OF "GRASSLANDS"

CONTENTS

PART I.--FIVE MILES OUT

CHAPTER

I. Five Miles Out

II. Everybody Explores

III. The Apartment Overflows

IV. Arguments and Answers

V. Telephones and Tents

VI. In the Pine Grove

VII. Everybody is Satisfied

VIII. Problems and Hearts

IX. Max Compromises

X. Jack-O'-Lantern

PART II.--THE LANES AND THE ACRES

I. What's in a Name

II. In the Old Garden

III. Afternoon Tea

IV. Two and Two

V. On an August Evening

VI. Time-Tables

VII. The Southbound Limited

VIII. From April North

IX. Round the Corner

X. Green Leaves

Strawberry Acres

PART I.--FIVE MILES OUT

CHAPTER I

FIVE MILES OUT

The four Lanes--Max, Sally, Alec and Robert--climbed the five flights of
stairs to their small flat with the agility of youth and the impetus of
high but subdued excitement. Uncle Timothy Rudd, following more slowly,
reached the outer door of the little suite of rooms in time to hear what
seemed to be the first outburst.

"Well, what do you think now?"

"Forty-two acres _and_ the house! Open the windows and give us air!"

"Acres run to seed, and the house tumbling down about its own ears! A
magnificent inheritance that!" Max cast his hat upon a chair as if he
flung it away with the inheritance.

"But who ever thought Uncle Maxwell Lane would ever leave his poor
relations anything?" This was Sally.

"Five miles out by road--a bit less by trolley. Let's go and see it
to-morrow afternoon. Thank goodness a half holiday is so near."

"Anybody been by the place lately?"

"I was, just the other day, on my wheel. I didn't think it looked so
awfully bad." This was Robert, the sixteen-year-old.

As Uncle Timothy entered the tiny sitting-room Sally was speaking. She
had thrown her black veil back over her hat, revealing masses of flaxen
hair, and deep blue eyes glowing with interest. Her delicate cheeks were
warmly flushed, partly with excitement, and partly because for two hours
now--during the journey from the flat to the lawyer's office, the period
spent therein listening to the reading of Uncle Maxwell Lane's will and
the business appertaining thereto, and the return trip home--she had
worn the veil closely drawn. Her simple mourning was to her a screen
behind which to shield herself from curious eyes, always attracted by
those masses of singularly fair hair and the unusual contours of the
young face beneath.

"I think it's a godsend, if ever anything was," she was saying. "Here's
Max, killing himself in the bank, and Alec growing pale and grouchy in
the office, and even Bob--" She was interrupted by a chorus of protests
against her terms of description.

"I'm not killing myself!"

"Pale and grouchy! I'm not a patch on--"

"What's the matter with Bob, Sally Lunn?"

"And Uncle Timmy," continued Sally, undisturbed by interpolations to
which she was quite accustomed, "pining for fresh air--."

"I walk in the park every day, my dear," Uncle Timothy felt obliged to
remind her.

"Yes, I know. But you've lived in a little city flat just as long as it's
good for you, and you need to be turned outdoors. So do we all. Oh, boys,
and Uncle Timmy!--I just sat there, crying and smiling under my veil in
that dreadful office--crying to think that I _couldn't_ cry for Uncle
Maxwell, because he was so cold and queer to us always, and yet he had
given us this property, after all--."

"And a mighty small fraction of the estate it is, I hope you understand!"
growled Max.

But Sally went on without minding. Everybody was used to Max's growls.
"And smiling because I couldn't help it just to think we had a chance at
last to get out of the city. We can do it. Five miles by trolley is
nothing for you boys, or for me, when I need to come in."

"You're not talking about our going to live out there!" Max's tone
was derisive.

"Why not?"

"Have you seen the place lately?"

"Not since I was a little girl, but I remember I thought it was
lovely then."

"It isn't lovely now, if it ever was--which I doubt. In the first place
it belongs to that little suburb of Wybury--as commonplace a village as
ever existed within five miles of as big a city as this. In the second
place it's as much an abandoned farm as neglect can make a place that was
once, I suppose, an aristocratic sort of country home. The old mansion is
as big as a barn, and as hopeless. You couldn't any more make a home out
of it!--Why, you could put this whole apartment into the room at the left
of the hall!"

"How do you know so much about it?" demanded Sally. "None of us has been
there since Aunt Alicia died--that was when we were children, and Uncle
Maxwell used to spend his summers there."

"He hasn't spent them there since she died," Max asserted. "How do I know
so much about it? I was down there last summer with Frank Sustis. His
father sent him out to look the place over, with a view to buying it
himself for a summer home. You should have heard Prank jeer at the idea
while we were going about."

"It makes no difference," persisted Sally, removing her hat and
folding the veil with care. "I want to see it. We'll go out
to-morrow, won't we?"

She appealed to her second brother, Alec, a young fellow of twenty, who
had thrown himself listlessly into a chair but who was listening
attentively to the discussion. He nodded. "Of course. You couldn't keep
one of us away, even Max. He wouldn't be done out of the pleasure of
showing us over the place and pointing out the defects, if, by keeping
still, he could own the whole ranch himself."

"It'll be jolly fun to go!" cried Bob, quickly. He could not bear sounds
of disagreement between the members of his family, because he knew Sally
did not like it.

"What do you think about the old place, Uncle Timmy?" questioned Sally
presently. She had taken off her one carefully-used street suit, and had
put on a fresh little black-and-white print, in which she was setting the
table for dinner. All the others except Uncle Timothy had gone out on
various errands.

"Well, Sally," said Mr. Timothy Rudd, thoughtfully, "I don't know that
I'm a competent judge. Your Uncle Maxwell's place was considered a fine
one in its day. Before he made so much money and took to living in town,
he used to like it there, I think, though he didn't say much about it.
I'm sorry it's been allowed to run down. There was a pine grove on it,
and a splendid young apple orchard, and a timber tract at the back that
ought to be worth considerable money by this time, if it hasn't been cut.
Probably it has, with timber bringing the prices it does now."

"About the house," inquired Sally, after Uncle Timothy had gone into
more or less detail concerning the place itself. "I'm especially
interested in the house. Do you think it would be out of the question
for us to live there?"

"I don't know. It would be something of a change from this," he admitted,
looking about the little dining-room. "You've managed to make us all
pretty comfortable here, with what there was left of the furniture after
the sale. I don't know how far it would go in Maxwell's big house. It's
pretty large, that's a fact. According to Max, it's in need of a good
deal of repair. Of course, as far as I'm concerned, I should like to live
out in the country among the green things, as I used to do, up in New
Hampshire. It would be good for us all. But you can tell better after
you've seen the place again."

There was no denying this. Sally's head was so full of plans it was
difficult to wait until the afternoon of the next day, when everybody
should be at liberty to make the trip to Wybury. The moment luncheon was
over they started, and by two o'clock the trolley-car, whizzing out
through the suburbs to the open country, then following the curve along
the river edge to pass through the small settlement called Wybury, had
deposited them in the centre of that village.

The Maxwell place lay a quarter of a mile down the river road, and the
party set off promptly to cover the short distance. It was early April,
sunny and mild, but still rather damp under foot. After leaving the board
sidewalks of Wybury there was no accommodation for foot passengers except
the path at the side of the road.

"Imagine tramping through this mud every night and morning," was Max's
first contribution to the effort he meant to make to disillusionize his
romantic sister, whose dreams of life in the country he considered worse
than folly. He turned up his trousers widely at the bottom as he spoke.

"It's such a little way, we could soon have a better path," Sally
replied. "Look, there are the chimneys, I'm sure, just beyond that grove
of pines. It's hardly more than five minutes' walk from the car."

"Five minutes through a February blizzard is five minutes too much."

"But five minutes through a midsummer evening is an hour too little,"
Sally gave him back.

"That pine grove belongs to the place," called back Bob, who was
considerably in advance of the others. Sally, in spite of her eagerness,
was adapting her pace to the limitations of Uncle Timothy, who at sixty
could hardly be expected to walk in competition with nineteen.

"Pine groves are worth something these days," said Max, eyeing the thick
tops critically.

Sally had charmed eyes for the pine grove; but she did not look at it
long, for beyond showed the great chimney-tops she remembered from her
childhood, when it had been the happiest treat she knew to be invited by
Aunt Alicia to spend the day at Uncle Maxwell's country place.

The young Lanes had all been born and brought up in the city. Their home
had been one of moderate luxury until, three years before, their father
had died suddenly, leaving the mere remnant of an estate which had been
supposed to be a large one. The shock, and the change from a life of ease
to one of close economy, had weakened the always delicate constitution of
the wife and mother until, a year after her husband's death, she had
followed him.

Max had left college at the end of his third year and gone into the bank
of which his Uncle Maxwell was vice-president. Alec, just ready for
college, had reluctantly resigned his purpose and taken a position in the
drafting-office of a firm of contractors, friends of his father. Even
Robert, the youngest, had found something to do. The family had sold the
old home to obtain money with which to meet expenses until the salaries
of the workers should begin to count, and had moved into the little flat
where the nineteen-year-old sister had, for a year now, done her girlish
best to make a home for her "four men," as she called them, while she
kept many violent attacks of heartache bravely hidden--for the most
part--under a bright exterior. Nobody knew how Sally disliked the
flat--unless it was Bob, who was her closest confidant.

"There's your fine family mansion!" called Max, pointing from the curve
of the road, which he had reached close after Bob.

Sally stood still in astonished surprise. Could that really be the
aristocratic old place of her memory? Max could hardly be blamed for his
derisive comments.

A noble house gone to decay is a sight infinitely more depressing than
that of an humble one. This once had been an imposing structure; it
looked now like a relic of war times.

"Look at the tumbling chimneys!" crowed Alec. "Look at the broken
shutters, swinging by one hinge. See those porch pillars--were they ever
white? Behold that side entrance--looks as if a cyclone had struck it!"

Sally was silent. Even her buoyant hopes fell before the indisputable
evidence given by her eyes. It was so big--the old place! A small house
one might hope to repair, but a large building like this--it would cost
more than they would have to spare in years. If the outside were any
indication of the inside, the situation was hopeless.

She followed Alec in through the gateway, at the dilapidated stone
side-posts of which Max gave a significant wave of the hand as he passed.
An overgrown hedge ran along the entire front of the place, its untrimmed
wildness adding to the general unkempt look, as did the sodden, tangled
surface of what had once been a lawn, the rank bunches of shrubbery which
half hid the front windows from sight, and the broken bricks in the old
walk which led, beside a grass-grown driveway, from gate-post to porch.

"How did Maxwell ever come to let this place go to seed like this?"
lamented Uncle Timothy. "He must have cared nothing at all for it. One
would think it was forty years instead of only ten that it had been left
to wind and weather."

"It's a wonder that some passing tramp hasn't set fire to it," commented
Max, searching in his pocket for the key which had been delivered to him
by Mr. Sidway, his uncle's executor. "Take a long breath before I let you
in. It'll be musty and fusty enough to stifle you, probably."

With considerable difficulty he turned the key in the rusty lock and
opened the door, which turned creakingly upon its long unused hinges. But
with the first step inside Sally's drooping spirits leaped up again.

"Oh Max," she cried, "what a beautiful old hall!"

"Beautiful, is it?" inquired Max, laughing contemptuously. "Well, I can't
say I see it."

"Looks just like a barracks to me!" sniffed Alec. "Phew-w--what air--or
lack of it!"

"But it _is_ beautiful," persisted Sally, in genuine enthusiasm. "See how
wide and high, sweeping straight through to that door at the back. And
see the wide, low staircase with the spindle railing and the curved posts
at the bottom. See the carving over the doors--and the fanlight over the
outside ones. And look at that fireplace!"

She dragged Max by one arm and Uncle Timothy by the other, to stand in
front of it. Halfway down the hall, sharing one of the great chimneys
with another fireplace on the other side of the wall, was a chimney-piece
of fine old colonial design. The proportions were colossal.

"It would take a cord of wood to keep the thing going an evening,"
asserted Max.

"And then nobody'd be warm unless he was sitting with his head inside the
hood," supplemented Alec.

But Sally was already off upon explorations. She rushed into the room
upon the left of the hall; it was a drawing-room thirty feet long by
twenty wide. She darted into the room on the right--it was twenty feet
square, and back of it lay another of similar size. She could no longer
wait for her party, with their slow and indifferent following of her,
but ran from room to room, calling back injunctions to note special
points of interest.

Bob kept close behind her. If he cared little for old houses, he cared
much for Sally, and he liked to see her eyes sparkle and her lips laugh.
Sally had times of being very sad and discouraged, as no one knew so well
as he, and if she could find interest in this old barracks--he thought
Alec had struck the right word--he was not the boy to dampen it.

"Let's skip up this back staircase, Bobby," proposed Sally, as they
turned about from exploring the kitchen and store-rooms. "I'm crazy to
find if there aren't some smaller rooms--nice, cozy ones, you know. It
can't be all so big everywhere."

"Don't you suppose the upstairs rooms are just the shape of the lower
ones?" suggested Bob, as they ran up.

"In front, perhaps, but not back here. There ought to be some lovely
rambling passageways, and steps up and steps down, and rooms where you
don't expect them, and a splendid attic--and perhaps a secret staircase.
Bob--what if there should actually be a secret staircase!"

Bob laughed. "You've been reading spooky stories. I suppose--"

"Robert Rudd Lane! Will you behold that little flight of five steps,
leading up to that door!"

Sally was down the hall and up the five steps in a flash. She would have
burst into the unknown region beyond, but a locked door barred her way.
Bob stood below and laughed at her baffled expression. "You'd rather see
through that door than into any other spot in the house that isn't locked
up, wouldn't you, Sally Lunn?" he commented, knowingly.

"Run down to Max for the keys, will you, dear?" she begged, and Bob ran.

The others came up. Max and Bob, Alec, and even Uncle Timothy, tried
every key in the bunch in vain. Sally attempted to peer through the
key-hole. Bob ran outside, and returning reported that there were no
shutters in the region opposite the probable position of the door.

"It's undoubtedly a dark store-room, with a row of empty shelves," said
Max. "Give it up, Sally. There are places enough to explore. A regiment
of infantry could be bivouacked in this second story. See the rooms, and
rooms inside of rooms."

"Oh, come away home!" cried Alec, impatiently, before Sally was half
satisfied.

"I'm going over to the timber tract. You'd better come along, Al. Let
Sally stay here and plan her hotel. Maxwell Inn--eh, Sally? A number on
each door, and a fire-escape at each end of the hall. A bell-boy and two
chambermaids for this floor; in time, an elevator and a manicure shop!"
And Max clattered laughing away down the front staircase, the shallow
steps of which he took two at a time.

"It isn't a very cozy nest, is it, Sis?" said Bob, sympathetically, as
Sally, after one look into the great square rooms over the front, closed
the doors with a bang.

At mention of the timber tract Uncle Timothy had gone downstairs after
the others. They heard him shut the front door, and from an upper window
saw him walking briskly away.

"No, it isn't--now," she admitted, soberly, "but--what a home it
could be made!"

"It's pretty near twice as big as our old one, and that was a fairly good
size. We could camp out in a corner of it, but that would be lonesome,
don't you think so? We might keep summer boarders."

Sally shook her head. She began to walk back through the upper halls. Bob
followed her, and they climbed the attic stairs, finding a great space
above, lighted by low windows shut in by patterns of ironwork.

"Jolly, what a place for rainy days!" ejaculated the boy, moved to
greater enthusiasm than he had felt anywhere below stairs. "You could
have a workshop and a gymnasium and all sorts of things. You could make
it really festive with a few rugs and pillows and hammocks and things.
How the fellows I know would like to get up here!"

He lingered behind his sister, who, after one comprehensive look round
the big, bare, dusty place, had slipped away downstairs again, guarding
her skirts carefully. When Bob, after planning in detail a possible
and desirable arrangement of the attic, reluctantly descended, he found
her at the top of the little flight of steps which led to the one
locked door.

"Look out! The family skeleton may be hidden behind that door!" he
called, racing down the hall. "Or worse. Come away, Fatima!"

"Bob," said Sally, regarding him from the top of the steps, her cheeks
brightly flushed, her eyes alight with interest, "I simply have to know
what's beyond this door."

"What are you expecting to find there, Sis? Trunks full of gold?
Family papers, leaving all the Maxwell Lane estate to the Lanes of
Henley Street?"

She shook her head with a laughing challenge. "Wait till I get a
locksmith here!" she said.

"I'll wait," and Bob sat composedly down on the bottom step, grinning up
at his excited sister. "Going to get him out by wireless?"

CHAPTER II

EVERYBODY EXPLORES

Alighting from her mother's carriage in front of the Winona apartments in
Henley Street, Josephine Burnside dismissed her coachman and hurried
eagerly into the florid vestibule.

"I don't see how Sally endures this sort of thing," she thought, for the
hundredth time since the Lane house, near her own in Grosvenor Place, had
been sold. The door-latch clicked promptly in answer to her ring, and at
the top of the third flight she met Sally.

"I was sure it was you! I'm so glad! I'm all alone," was Sally's joyful
welcome; and the next minute Josephine found herself inside the small
passage, her outer garments being forcibly removed, and herself borne
into the little living-room and established in Uncle Timothy's reading
chair, which was the most comfortable one in the place.

"Sewing--as usual? What are you making now? Something lovely out of
nothing at all, I suppose?"

"Of course. It's a convenient accomplishment. You didn't know that four
and a half yards of Swiss muslin would make a whole frock, did you? Well,
it will--under some conditions." And Sally proudly held up the work of
her hands, a nearly finished product at which her friend, attired at the
moment in some fifteen yards of silk, stared in amazement.

"Sally Lunn! You didn't--you couldn't! It's not skimpy in the least. You
must have pieced out with something else. But where?"

"The remains of my old one, re-enforced underneath, and used where the
least wear will come on it. It's not an exact match, but I don't think it
will show."

"Show! Not a bit. But I thought putting old and new wash goods together
wouldn't do."

"I've shrunk the new, and, as I told you, re-enforced the old with some
very thin, cheap lawn. I shall wash it myself--with the ends of my
fingers, and my eyes looking the other way. Find the old parts!"

Thus challenged, Josephine brought a pair of very bright black eyes to
bear upon the pretty frock, turning it over critically, and after some
search discovered the resourceful trick which had made the whole lower
half of the skirt and part of the sleeves out of the old muslin.

"You genius!" she cried. "I wish I were half as clever as you." She
regarded her friend with the genuine admiration and affection which had
carried the comradeship of the two girls safely through the test of the
Lanes' altered fortunes.

"How good it is to have you back!" said Sally, returning the look. "You
haven't half told me about your winter."

"Yes--but never mind that just now," said Josephine. "I've come to hear
about you. Jarvis met Max this morning, heard the news, and told it at
luncheon. I simply flew down to show you how glad I am, and to hear more.
Tell me, is it a beautiful old place, and shall you go there to live? I
suppose I've seen it, but I've forgotten."

"It's a forlorn old place, dreadfully run down, but I want to live in
it. The boys won't hear of it--as yet. We've only been there once.
We're going again Saturday--you know that's the only time they can all
get away."

"What fun. Can't I go, too? There must be something nice about it, or you
wouldn't want to live there."

"There's a locked door in it," said Sally, smiling, as her thoughts
turned to the mystery. She described the finding of the door to
Josephine, who exclaimed:

"I must be there to see it opened! What do you suppose you'll find?"

"Dust and empty shelves, Max says. Blue-beard's murdered wives, says Bob.
Alec guesses a lot of broken-backed chairs and a desk with the hinges
off. Uncle Timothy thinks it merely leads to the roof. But the steps from
the attic do that."

"What do _you_ think?"

"I think everything," admitted Sally, "from antique mirrors and old
clothes to empty flower pots and battered and rons. I'm prepared for
anything--except the empty shelves. Why should the door be locked so
securely if there's nothing behind it?"

"Why, indeed? I don't know why, but my imagination shudders deliciously
at the thought of seeing it opened. May I go on Saturday? May Jarvis go?
He wanted me to ask. He's having a bad time with his eyes again, can't
read, and pines for something to do. A locked closet will interest him."

"Of course you may both go, if you'll get Jarvis to promise not to throw
any cold water on my schemes."

"He's not likely to discourage any of your schemes, you know well enough.
Hasn't he always taken your part, even against me, since we used to
quarrel over which should have the shady side of the sand pile? 'Sun
won't hurt your gipsy face, Joey,' he'd say. 'Give Sally the shade, like
a gentleman.'"

Both girls laughed. Then Sally grew sober. "Seems to me it's only a
little while since Jarvis had his last siege with his eyes," she
observed. "Are they quite as bad again?"

"He's not shut up in the dark this time, but has to wear blue goggles in
the daytime, is forbidden reading and writing absolutely for weeks, and
goes to Doctor Meyer every other day for treatment. He's getting as
rampageous as a caged lion, and vows he'll go off to the South Seas, or
Labrador, or some other place where books and libraries and literary work
won't tantalize him. He'd go to-morrow, I believe, if it weren't for
mother. She can't bear the idea."

"It was that last awful year's work at college," said Sally regretfully.
"Why did he ever conceive the idea of doing two years' work in one--and
why did his friends let him do it?"

"I know--that's what we all say now. So does he."

"Of course he must go Saturday; tell him I particularly want him."

"That will please him. Now do tell me about the whole place," and
Josephine settled herself to listen.

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